In 2019, Red Sox baseball legend David Ortiz was shot in the back while drinking with friends, including his cousin, Sixto David Fernandez, and TV host Jhoel Lopez.
On Monday, December 26, 2022, a Santo Domingo court convicted 10 of the 13 people accused of David Ortiz’ attempted murder.
The accused shooters were Rolfi Ferreira Cruz and his accomplice Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia. They were accused of shooting Ortiz while he was at a Santo Domingo nightclub. They both received a 39-year prison sentence. The remaining eight people accused of being involved in the murder plot were given prison sentences of 5 to 20 years.
Three of the accused were acquitted because of insufficient evidence.
The first-person police arrested in connection with the shooting was Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, who was Rolfi Ferreira Cruz’s driver and an accomplice. A crowd of Ortiz supporters chased him down and beat him until police arrived.
Ortiz hired American private investigators, and their findings revealed that a jealous Dominican drug dealer was targeting him.
In a strange twist, despite the findings by the private investigators, police in the Dominican Republic believed that the hitman was hired to gun down Ortiz’s cousin Sixto David Fernandez, not Ortiz.
Dominican police said that because Ortiz and Fernandez were sitting at the same table, the hitmen must have confused the two and shot one of the country’s most prolific athletes.
The three-judge panel agreed with the Dominican authorities’ theory that the hitmen confused the two cousins, though police did not establish a motive.
Ortiz, affectionately known to fans as Big Papi, sustained serious injuries during the June 2019 shooting, which left him fighting for his life for several weeks. He spent some time in a hospital in the Dominican Republic, where doctors removed his gall bladder and a chunk of his intestine. He then underwent further surgery in the United States.
Speaking to one of the country’s news outlets, Ortiz did not seem to have a grudge against his shooters. He said that it was a learning experience for him and made him improve certain things in his life. He said that he always looks at every situation in a positive light.
Big Papi said he had forgiven them and felt healed from the trauma of the experience.
One of the greatest baseball players alive, Ortiz took the Red Sox to three World Series championships and was the most recognizable face in baseball for almost two decades. Before his retirement in 2016, he had hit over 500 home runs and was a 10-time All-Star.
Although he was splitting his years between the Dominican Republic and the US after his retirement, he remained in the public eye as he was a studio analyst for the postseason coverage for Fox Sports.
Ortiz took a break after his 2019 shooting but returned on air after four months.