Judge denies request for restraining order against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer

• A judge on Thursday denied a request for a restraining order against Trevor Bauer.
• The woman seeking an extension of the order accused Bauer of sexual assault on two occasions in April and May.
• Bauer and his team have denied wrongdoing, saying the encounters were consensual.

A judge in Los Angeles Superior Court denied a request to extend a restraining order against the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer on Thursday.

On June 29, a woman, who Insider has chosen not to name, filed an ex parte restraining order that accused the MLB pitcher of assault during two sexual encounters in April and May.

She was seeking a five-year extension to this restraining order. Bauer and his team have denied wrongdoing, saying the encounters were consensual.

Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman called the woman's case "materially misleading" and said that "the dating relationship was at most tenuous."

"The court finds that there is no supportable evidence that petitioner will cause her any harm," she said. She ruled to dissolve the temporary restraining order and deny a permanent one.

Both legal teams had offered impassioned arguments.

"Trevor Bauer is a monster," Lisa Helfend Meyer, a lawyer for the woman, said. "He was aggressively abused as a child, and as an adult he became an abuser." (The comments were then called out of order.)

Meyer pushed back on the assertion that the woman's interest in hanging out with Bauer was nefarious. She said the woman wanted to impress Bauer and because of this was reluctant to report an assault.

"To quote Tom Hanks' 'A League of Their Own,' 'There is no crying in baseball.' It appears that's what she wanted to show Trevor," Meyer said.

Meyer said her team was asking for a five-year extension of the restraining order and for Bauer to enter a 52-week batterers-intervention program.

In her closing argument, Meyer argued for the extension partially based on the notion that the woman and Bauer had a dating relationship as defined by California's family code, citing the quantity and nature of their communications.

Meyer also said that under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act and based on evidence heard in court, she believed Bauer had sexually assaulted the woman.

"A person who is unconscious cannot offer consent," Meyer told the court. Meyer added that without Bauer's testimony, his case was weakened.

Bauer and his attorneys have described the encounters as "wholly consensual," citing text messages describing rough sex.

In the restraining order and in sworn testimony in court this week, the woman alleged that during their second encounter, Bauer strangled her with her own hair until she lost consciousness and repeatedly punched her in the face, buttocks, and genitals during intercourse.

The forensic nurse who examined her testified on Tuesday that she had never seen injuries like the woman's before.

Shawn Holley, a lawyer for Bauer, said the woman's allegations "defy credulity."

"Pretending to be something that you are not is a lie," Holley said. Holley described text messages the woman had sent her cousin as bragging about hanging out with Bauer; some included GIFs and emojis including hearts and kissing faces.

Holley argued that Bauer was "taking her at her word" when the woman expressed interest in "rough" sex over text messages.

"What she doesn't say is 'Don't choke me, don't hit me, don't hurt me,'" Holley said. "I'm sure it was painful and unpleasant, and that is unfortunate - but she asked for these things. She did play a part in that by not speaking up for herself."

Holley argued that Bauer's repeated communication with the woman was a genuine attempt to check in on her and was not based on concerns that he may get into legal trouble. Meyer had told the court that they'd never know his intention because he never took the stand.

Holley argued that their two encounters did not constitute a relationship and that the woman's testimony amounted to sending "a fake ambassador to the negotiating table."

In closing, Holley asked the court to deny the petition.

In her rebuttal, Meyer said that beyond expressing his "three rules of dating" in their first encounter, Bauer never communicated his sexual interests to the woman. "He broke his own rules," Meyer said.

"I felt I was sitting in a courtroom in the 1950s when I was listening to Holley," Meyer said. "You cannot consent to an assault and battery."

Meyer said the woman "went to the media to protect her reputation and to get justice and filed this order in good faith."

Outside the courthouse, Bauer appeared unmoved. Holley told reporters that Bauer's team was "grateful to the Los Angeles Superior Court for denying this permanent restraining order."

"We have expected this outcome," Holley said.