BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) - Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Jose Tabata said Friday his much-older wife lied to him about being pregnant with his child before she was accused of abducting a 2-month-old baby girl, who has since been returned to her parents.

According to Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, Tabata's wife showed off pictures of an infant and told the player that the baby was his, only to have Tabata learn hours after seeing the baby that the girl had been taken from her parents in Plant City, about 60 miles from Bradenton, where the Pirates train.

Pereira, arrested after the baby was handed over to authorities in a Bradenton shopping center parking lot on Tuesday, was taken Wednesday to the Hillsborough County Jail and is lodged on $750,000 bond on an abduction charge.

"She completely falsified her pregnancy and the eventual birth of a baby girl, which would have made me a father for the first time," said Tabata, who read a prepared statement in Spanish but did not answer questions from the media before an afternoon workout. "Imagine how that made me feel."

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