With the news that prosecutors in Arizona have filed extortion charges against a woman who accused Trevor Bauer of sexual assault, the former Los Angeles Dodgers star and Cy Young Award winner may be one step closer to clearing his name.
That’s the assessment of KTLA 5 News legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Alison Triessl.
The criminal charges against Darcy Adanna Esemonu, 34, were filed after a grand jury in Maricopa County handed down a two-count indictment.
Bauer admits to having sex with the former pageant winner in 2020 but says it was consensual. Afterward, Esemonu claimed she was pregnant and demanded a seven-figure payout to, in part, pay for her to have an abortion, Bauer and his lawyers allege.
He refused to pay that amount and Esemonu sued Bauer in 2023, claiming he raped her.
Believing she was pregnant, Bauer, 33, eventually paid Esemonu $8,761, which she used for a trip to Philadelphia to get LASIK surgery, his lawyers claimed in a countersuit.
Triessl says the grand jury and prosecutors ultimately determined that Esemonu was neither pregnant nor a victim.
“What the prosecution is going to allege and what Trevor Bauer will testify to, is that this was a money grab … that this was simply a shakedown,” Triessl told KTLA’s Samantha Cortese.
