Trevor Bauer accuser charged with felony fraud after she said pitcher got her pregnant

Baseball pitcher Trevor Bauer never was arrested or charged with a crime after being accused of sexual assault by multiple women. But now a crime has been charged in one of his cases — against one of his accusers for allegedly defrauding Bauer.

The woman, Darcy Adanna Esemonu, previously filed a civil lawsuit against Bauer that said he assaulted and choked her in Scottsdale, Arizona, in late 2020. Bauer denied it and countersued her in April 2023, accusing her of fraud, extortion and fabricating a pregnancy.

A grand jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, then returned an indictment against Esemonu in March that charged her with committing felony fraud against Bauer and another man. In Bauer’s case, one of his representatives said the charge relates to making false representations that she was pregnant and costs she claimed were related to prenatal care and an abortion that didn’t happen.

The indictment wasn't made public until this week, after a judge on Monday ordered the case to be unsealed.

Bauer, a 33-year-old former Cy Young Award winner, hasn’t pitched in Major League Baseball since a similar allegation was made against him by another woman in June 2021. Esemonu is due to be arraigned in court April 26 and is facing possible jail time if convicted.

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What did Trevor Bauer say about this?

He went on his YouTube channel Tuesday to say “these women and their lawyers attempted to weaponize anonymous claims in the media against me to take my money.”

“At this point, I’m not sure what else I can possibly do to prove my innocence in all of this,” Bauer said on YouTube. “I did not do what I was accused of, and every institution that our society has entrusted to rule on issues like these, like courts, judges, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, etc., they all agree with me. They’ve rejected every single claim made against me, even going as far as charging one of my accusers with a felony. If any evidence of any of these claims actually existed, I would have been charged, or at the very least arrested. But that never happened. What else do I have to do to prove that this entire situation has been a massive lie? This is insane. At what point do I get to go back to work and continue earning a living?”

The former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher said he had a consensual encounter with this woman and others, though the women said he went too far.  Major League Baseball also investigated these cases and gave him a 324-game suspension, which was later reduced to 194 games after a private arbitration hearing — still the largest suspension under the league’s domestic violence policy.

In this case, one of the women who accused him has been charged, not just with fraud related to Bauer but also with extorting another man.

What happened in this case?

The indictment didn’t spell out the details of what she allegedly did. But the woman claimed she was pregnant and demanded $1.6 million to terminate her pregnancy, according to Bauer’s countersuit against the woman. Bauer ended up paying $8,761 for the expenses related to her “alleged pregnancy and its subsequent termination,” according to his countersuit.

The woman’s amended civil complaint against Bauer said she decided not to terminate the pregnancy but had a miscarriage in April 2021.

“She never had an abortion, because she was never even pregnant, and that’s corroborated by her own medical records,” Bauer said on the video. “When I refused to pay her the $3.6 million she was asking for, she made up a bogus sexual assault claim and filed a civil suit against me.”

An attorney for Esemonu didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

Bauer's career status

Bauer’s baseball career in the U.S. came to halt in late June 2021, when a San Diego woman accused him of assault during sexual encounters at his home in Pasadena. She said he went too far during rough sex and went to the hospital after one encounter, where she was diagnosed with an acute head injury and assault by strangulation.

In that case, Bauer said the woman concealed evidence from him that he sued her to discover. He used her digital messages to portray her claims as a money grab. The two resolved civil litigation against each other last year.

So far there have been no takers in Bauer's bid to resume his MLB career.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com