A private investigator says baseball legend David “Big Papi” Ortiz was targeted by a drug kingpin in a 2019 shooting that nearly killed him, The Boston Globe reported.
The findings contradict a theory put forth by Dominican authorities, who previously said the target of the shooting was Sixto David Fernandez, another popular baseball player who was sitting next to Ortiz when he was shot.
Former Boston Police Department (BPD) Commissioner Edward Davis told the Globe that drug kingpin César Peralta put a bounty on Ortiz and sanctioned a hit squad to kill him.
Davis implied that Peralta sanctioned the hit on Ortiz because he felt disrespected by him, according to the Globe.
“Peralta said he had David shot,” Davis told the newspaper, citing the information he and his team gathered in Ortiz’s case.
In a phone call, Ortiz, who was recently inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame, that he was “sad, confused, angry, all kinds of emotions” when he received the news from Davis and his team.
Peralta’s attorney Joaquin Perez said his client “had nothing to do with” the assassination attempt on Ortiz, noting that Peralta was among those who came to Ortiz’s aid when he was shot, the Globe reported.
“As bad as César Peralta is, it’s not even close to being in the ballpark to say he had something to do with this,” Perez said in a statement.
Ortiz, who won three World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox, was seriously wounded after being shot in the back at a Dominican Republic nightclub in June 2019, according to the Associated Press.
Local doctors had to remove the Baseball legend’s gallbladder and part of his intestine during emergency surgery and Ortiz underwent further surgery when he returned to the U.S.
Peralta is currently being held in U.S. custody in Puerto Rico, facing separate charges of conspiracy to import cocaine and heroin, the Globe noted.
Thirteen people have been charged in relation to the 2019 shooting, per the AP.