A Minnesota photographer is accusing Miguel Sano of sexual assault

Twins third baseman Miguel Sano has been accused of sexual assault by a local photographer. Betsy Bissen, who is a photographer for Twins Daily, the St. Paul Saints, and the Minnesota Zoo, posted a statement about the alleged incident on Twitter Thursday morning.

In it, she details a scary situation that reportedly occurred after an autograph signing at which she was volunteering. Bissen writes that during the signing, Sano flirted with her but she ignored it. He then forced her to go to the nearby Apple store with him after it was over, and the incident occurred when they were exiting the building to his car.

You can read the full statement of the interaction below, and the specifics are galling:

Bissen says that Sano grabbed her wrist forcefully and attempted to kiss her repeatedly while she resisted and that she screamed but nobody came to help her while she fought against his efforts to drag her through a doorway. In the aftermath, she says “my body was sore all over from having to fight” him off as he held on to her for “a solid 10 minutes.”

In an additional tweet, Bissen makes clear that there is no connection between this incident and the Twins reported interest in trading Sano this offseason. She claims they did not know anything about it:

The Twins released a statement in regard to Bissen’s tweets a few hours after she posted the allegations. In the brief comment, they say they “take these allegations very seriously” but won’t say anything further until they have more information about the alleged assault:

Sano has been with the Twins since 2015 and isn’t a free agent until 2022. Hopefully the team does not take these allegations any less seriously because of his success on the field or contract situation.