The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office determined Tuesday that it will not file felony charges against former Dodgers pitcher Julio Urías following his arrest on suspicion of domestic violence, writing on its spreadsheet assessment of charges that “neither the victim’s injuries nor the defendant’s criminal history justify a felony filing.”
The case will now move to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office for misdemeanor filing considerations.
Major League Baseball, which launched an independent investigation into the incident, will likely wait until the city attorney’s office rules before determining a possible suspension.
Urías, currently a free agent, was previously suspended 20 games by MLB in August 2019 following an arrest on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic battery. He was not criminally charged for that incident. If he is suspended again, Urías would become the first repeat offender in the history of the league’s domestic violence policy, which was launched in August 2015.
Urías, 27, was arrested the night of September 3 on suspicion of bodily injury to his spouse and MLB placed him on administrative leave three days later, effectively ending his season. The incident occurred in the BMO Stadium parking lot after an LAFC soccer game, during which a witness saw Urías get into a physical altercation with his wife. Urías was released on $50,000 bail the next morning.
The California Highway Patrol’s major crimes division spent the next three months investigating the incident before turning the case over to the district attorney’s office on December 11. The district attorney’s office wrote on the charge evaluation worksheet Tuesday that Urias pushed the victim against a fence and “pulled her by her hair or shoulders.”
Urías, who left Mexico shortly after his 16th birthday, navigated through the Dodgers’ farm system as a prized pitching prospect, eventually starring as a 19-year-old rookie in 2016. He then returned from major shoulder surgery to become a major contributor on championship-caliber teams, reaching the 2020 World Series final, racking up 20 wins in 2021 and finishing third in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2022.
As a young free agent with relatively few innings under his belt, Urías was widely projected to sign a contract worth more than $200 million on the open market before the incident. Now, even in the absence of a criminal conviction, his MLB future appears to be in serious jeopardy.
