Lawyers for suspended Major League Baseball pitcher Trevor Bauer are asking a judge to dismiss counterclaims brought by a woman he said falsely accused him of sexual assault, saying her claims have already been found to be false.
They included with the filing a video from Hill’s cellphone that shows her in bed next to a sleeping Bauer. She appears to be smiling at one point and uninjured as she looks into the camera.
The video is not available through the public court file, but a law firm hired by Bauer, Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Los Angeles, posted it to their website. Bauer also re-tweeted a tweet that contained it Wednesday morning, writing, “This was taken hours after I supposedly brutally assaulted this woman, when she claims she was terrified and desperate to get out of my house and in tremendous pain.”
This was taken hours after I supposedly brutally assaulted this woman, when she claims she was terrified and desperate to get out of my house and in tremendous pain. https://t.co/k0jma3eqLP
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) September 14, 2022
Bauer’s lawyers say Hill “improperly withheld” the video when it could have helped exonerate Bauer during hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2021. They recently obtained it from Pasadena police after requesting “videos or recordings made by Lindsey Hill while she was at Trevor Bauer’s residence on April 21, 2021 and May 15-16, 2021, respectively,” according to a declaration from Blair G. Brown, a partner with Zuckerman Spaeder.
Hill’s lawyers include Bryan J. Freedman and Jesse A. Kaplan of Freedman + Taitelam, LLP, who had not yet responded to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon from Law & Crime.
The video and declaration were fled to support a 28-page dismissal motion brought by Bauer’s lawyers that argues Hill’s Aug. 9 counterclaims must be dismissed because it simply seeks to “relitigate issues she fully litigated and lost after a trial in which she was represented by some of the same lawyers who filed the instant Counterclaim.”
“Although Ms. Hill may not have liked the outcome of that proceeding, as the judge rejected her version of events, the judgment precludes re-litigation of those issues here,” according to the motion, which adds that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman also determined Hill’s petition for a restraining order was “materially misleading” and that both of her “rough sex” encounters with Bauer were consensual.
Bauer was a star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers when Hill obtained a temporary restraining order against him based on allegations that he sexually assaulted her, which led to the hearing in which Gould-Saltman declined to issue a more permanent restraining order. He was never charged with a crime, but Major League Baseball suspended him for two seasons without pay in April.
That same month, Bauer filed the current case against Hill and her lawyer Niranjan Fred Thiagarajah, accusing both of defamation and Hill also of two counts of tortious interference with contract and prospective economic advantage. Hill’s counterclaims accuses him of sexual battery and battery.
The first hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 21 before Senior U.S. District Judge James V. Selna in Santa Ana.
Read Bauer’s full dismissal motion below.
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