Boston Red Sox great David Ortiz was targeted by drug lord Cesar “The Rapist” Peralta in a June 2019 shooting that sent a Hall of Famer to the hospital for nearly 50 days, a private investigation by former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis revealed. Bob Holer of the Boston Globe. Ortiz was shot in the back at a club in the Dominican Republic.
“Peralta said he shot David,” Davis said, referring to information gathered by US law enforcement officials. Dominican officials initially stated that this was a case of mistaken identity and that the intended target was one of Ortiz’s friends who was believed to be the informant.
According to a Boston Globe report, Ortiz denies he had more than a casual relationship with Peralta, although Peralta’s attorney Joaquin Perez said the two men are “close friends.” Peralta is said to have felt disrespected by Ortiz and wanted him dead. Here is more information from the Boston Globe:
Ortiz, in a phone call from the Dominican Republic, said he was “sad, confused, angry, all kinds of emotions” when he received the news from Davis, whom he had hired to investigate, and Rick Prado, a former senior official. a senior CIA official involved in the investigation.
Davis’s findings contradict the stories of Dominican law enforcement. At first, they claimed that an unidentified individual with an unknown motive placed a bounty on Ortiz. However, they quickly abandoned this theory and dismissed the shooting as a case of mistaken identity, never engaging Peralta.
Victor Hugo Gomez, believed to be a member of a Mexican drug cartel, was arrested in connection with the 2019 shooting. Gomez is one of 13 suspects awaiting trial in the case.
Peralta was on the run from US charges and was living in the Dominican Republic at the time of the shooting. Later that year, his network was raided and Peralta was eventually captured in Colombia in 2020. He has since been extradited to Puerto Rico. The motive for the shooting remains unclear.
Ortiz, 46, became the fourth Dominican player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame earlier this year. He made a full recovery from the shooting and returned to Fenway Park for the first time in September 2019.