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Report: Phillies manager Gabe Kapler didn’t alert police to alleged 2015 assault while with Dodgers, instead tried to arrange a dinner

The Washington Post, citing a police report and emails, reported that the alleged victim partied with two Dodgers minor-leaguers and two women in an Arizona hotel room before the assault.

Phillies manager Gabe Kapler
Phillies manager Gabe KaplerRead moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Phillies manager Gabe Kapler, while he was working for the Los Angeles Dodgers, did not contact the police in 2015 after being told that two of his players were involved in an assault of a 17-year-old girl. Instead, he offered to arrange a dinner between the girl and the players, according to a report Friday by the Washington Post.

The Post, citing a police report and emails obtained through open-records requests, reported that the girl partied with two Dodgers minor-leaguers and two women in a hotel room near the Dodgers’ Arizona spring-training facility. The girl drank half a bottle of vodka and vomited on one of the beds.

The two other women, angered that the girl vomited on the bed, kicked and punched the girl as they threw her out of the room. The two players, the girl said, did not interfere, and one player filmed the assault and posted it to Snapchat.

“The boys got me drunk and the girls beat me up,” she wrote a few days later in an email to Kapler. “Your player . . . videotaped it all.”

Reached Friday night, Kapler did not comment on the record. The Phillies could not be reached for comment.

Neither Kapler nor the Dodgers chose to contact the police, the Post reported. The girl’s grandmother emailed Kapler after her granddaughter, who had run away from home six months earlier, called to tell her what happened. The grandmother first called the hotel, which put her in contact with the Dodgers, who directed her to Kapler, the Post reported.

The assault was alleged to have happened in February 2015, Kapler’s first spring training as the Dodgers’ director of player development. Kapler oversaw the Dodgers’ minor-league system from November 2014 to October 2017, when he was hired by the Phillies.

“The girls were provided alcohol, and encouraged to drink. They were asked to dance, and, according to my granddaughter, she told them she didn’t know how. ... They encouraged her to drink some more,” the grandmother wrote in an email obtained by the Post.

Kapler, the grandmother told police, called and apologized and offered to help the granddaughter in “any way she needed.” Kapler then offered to arrange a dinner with the girl, the two players, and himself. The grandmother emailed two days later to say her granddaughter did not have any interest in such a dinner.

“She feels scared that she is being set up for something bad. Now I am feeling scared that she really has to look over her shoulder. I really appreciate you trying to help her,” the grandmother emailed to Kapler.

“This dinner is our initiative,” Kapler wrote back, according to the Post. “We will ensure [the girl’s] safety. We believe we can teach valuable lessons to all involved through this method of follow up.”

The Post said Kapler told them this week in a written statement that “his actions were in line with club policy and advice offered by Dodgers’ lawyers and human resources personnel.”

The grandmother emailed Kapler a few hours later to tell him that the 17-year-old girl was now homeless after her boyfriend kicked her out of his apartment. She asked Kapler, “Is there any way you can help her?” Kapler, according to records obtained by the Post, did not reply.

The girl was arrested a week later in Phoenix for shoplifting at a Walmart. She was turned over to the state’s Department of Child Safety, and she told case managers that she had been beaten a week before by two women. They contacted police, and two officers interviewed her, the Post reported.

The girl told police that she did not meet the two players until that night. She had met the two women recently through Facebook. One of the women was dating one of the players, while the other was single. In her interview with police, the girl revealed that she was sexually assaulted. Kapler told the Post that he was not aware of an alleged sexual assault until the Post contacted him this week.

She said she laid down on the bed after starting to feel sick while the two women and one of the players were in the bathroom. The other player, the girl told police, laid down next to her and slid his hand under her bra and then down the front of her pants. She said it ended when the two women and the other player came out of the bathroom, the Post reported.

The girl vomited shortly afterward on the bed and was beaten by the women as she was dragged from the room. The girl told police that she did not want to press charges, but the two caseworkers with DCS -- who had become her legal guardians -- said they wanted to press charges against the two women and the Dodgers player. An officer called the grandmother, and she forwarded them the emails with Kapler.

The girl ran away from the group home a few hours later. A few weeks later, according to the police report obtained by the Post, police were called by attorney David Derickson, who said he represented the Dodgers player and had directed the player to not speak to police about the night in the hotel room. The player, according to the Post, was released by the Dodgers in April 2015 and played just one more season in professional baseball.

The police, in May 2015, opted to move on from the case without making an arrest. The girl resurfaced but refused to cooperate with the investigation. She told police, according to the Post, “that it wouldn’t help her situation now. She didn’t want to deal with it.”