The trial of two major league baseball pitchers accused of rigging pitches in a betting scheme begins Monday with jury selection in federal court in New York.
Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase de la Cruz and Luis Leandro Ortiz Ribera are charged with conspiracy to commit wire and honest services fraud, sports bribery and money laundering.
Co-defendants Robinson Vásquez Germosen and Luis Arismendy Paca Méndez are accused of sharing inside information from Clase, 28, with other bettors and using that information to wager on what federal prosecutors say were predetermined pitches.
Paca Méndez, who prosecutors allege lived with Clase at his house in Ohio during part of the scheme, will not take part in the trial in Brooklyn after being extradited from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. on Oct. 19, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Guardians front office personnel, including general manager Mike Chernoff, as well as coaches and catchers who worked with Clase and Ortiz are among the potential witnesses, along with officials from Major League Baseball and DraftKings.
The government alleges that Clase, one of the best closers in baseball, rigged at least 18 pitches in 17 games from May 19, 2023, to May 28, 2025, often by intentionally throwing balls or by tipping off bettors that he would throw an off-speed pitch. Prosecutors say he shared information about the planned result or the velocity of the pitches with bettors, including Vásquez and Méndez, using code words like “rooster” and “chicken,” sometimes in exchange for “bribe and kickback payments.”
The bettors allegedly placed more than 100 wagers and won at least $400,000 on Clase’s pitches. In a hearing Friday, attorneys disclosed that the bets were placed with DraftKings, FanDuel and ESPN BET.
Clase’s attorneys have argued that his pitches were part of normal baseball strategy. “At trial, the jury will be tasked with deciding if certain ... pitches were thrown for legitimate, baseball-strategy reasons or in furtherance of a scheme to defraud betting companies,” his attorneys wrote in a September filing. “In isolation, any single pitch in the dirt can be painted as nefarious.”
In a January filing, Clase’s attorneys said that he did not participate in a conspiracy and instead had communicated with his associates about gambling on rooster fighting in the Dominican Republic, where it is legal. They added that Clase and Ortiz moved money to their home country to buy and care for livestock, including a horse.
During the hearing Friday, prosecutors said they recently learned that Clase owes the IRS about $500,000, which they argued showed motive for the alleged bribes. Clase’s attorneys denied in court that their client had a financial motive. The judge ruled the information inadmissible for trial.
ESPN obtained records of a federal tax lien listed under Clase’s name in Maricopa County, Arizona, for $588,919.60 in back taxes from 2022 to 2024. The lien was issued in May 2026.
Ortiz, 27, is accused of manipulating two pitches in two Guardians games in June 2025, according to the indictment. Prosecutors say Ortiz was in debt to a company that advances money to professional athletes against their future earnings.
In a September filing, Ortiz’s attorneys said that he never communicated with the bettors: “Not once. Not by text, not by phone, not in person.”
“The government’s case against Luis Leandro Ortiz Ribera is remarkably thin,” Ortiz’s attorneys wrote. “It consists, in essence, of the anticipated testimony of two cooperating bettors ... and a handful of wagers that [they] and two of their relatives placed on two pitches Mr. Ortiz threw.”
The alleged scheme came to light after sportsbooks flagged unusual betting interest on Ortiz’s first pitch in the bottom of the second inning on June 15, 2025, against the Seattle Mariners, and his first pitch in the top of the third inning against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 27, 2025.
In a court filing, the government said the size of the bets on the two Ortiz pitches was up to “136 times greater” than the average wager placed by the bettors allegedly involved. MLB has since asked sportsbooks to place a maximum $200 betting limit on wagers on individual pitches and to prohibit such bets from being included in parlays.
MLB placed Ortiz and Clase on non-disciplinary paid leave in July 2025. The two were indicted four months later.
Clase earned more than $13 million over a seven-year major league career, and he was scheduled to make $6.4 million in 2026. Ortiz’s salary in 2025 was $782,600.
Attorneys for Clase, Ortiz and Paca Méndez did not respond to requests for comment from ESPN. A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson declined ESPN’s request for comment about the trial.
Vásquez’s attorney, Todd Spodek, told ESPN that his client is innocent.
“People forget that an indictment is just the government’s side of the story,” he said. “Mr. Vásquez is innocent, and we’re confident that the evidence will support this.”
In court documents filed days before the trial, the prosecution and defense sparred over the translation from Spanish to English of text messages, videos and voice memos that will be used as evidence. A Spanish-language interpreter will participate in the proceedings.
Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto will oversee the trial, which the government estimates will last three weeks.
The wire fraud, honest services and money laundering charges carry maximum prison sentences of 20 years, while the sports bribery charge has a five-year maximum prison sentence, according to the Department of Justice.
The case is one of five federal sports gambling cases involving alleged performance manipulation by professional or college athletes over the past three years -- and the first to go to trial.
ESPN reporter Michael Rothstein and ESPN researcher John Mastroberardino contributed to this story.