An alleged accomplice in the attempted killing of Red Sox legend David Ortiz has been taken into custody in the Dominican Republic after years of being on the loose.
Police officers assigned to Interpol Santo Domingo arrested Maria Fernanda Villasmil Manzanilla, 25, of Venezuela, on Tuesday in connection to the 2019 shooting of Big Papi, Dominican authorities stated Wednesday.
Ten people have been convicted for the ambush that took place outside a bar in a well-off neighborhood of Santo Domingo on June 9, 2019. Two men, including the alleged shooter Rolfi Ferreyra Cruz, were each sentenced to 30 years in prison by Santo Domingo’s First Collegiate Court in December 2022.
Eight others received prison sentences of between 5 and 20 years.
Among the crimes for which the 10 men were sentenced were criminal organization, use of illegal firearms, attempted murder, and complicity, the court wrote in a statement.
Authorities had been actively pursuing Villasmil Manzanilla since the attack with a red notification – a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrent, or similar legal action, according to Interpol.
Officers located Villasmil Manzanilla in the National District with a man and woman, both Venezuelans, before seizing her passport, two IPhones, bank cards, jewelry, cash and other belongings and putting her under the control of the Public Ministry.
Three defendants in the case have been acquitted due to insufficient evidence, including Víctor Hugo Gómez Vásquez, who was accused of planning the attack.
Ortiz, who has since entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, was seriously wounded in the shooting. Doctors in the Dominican Republic removed Ortiz’s gallbladder and part of his intestine after the shooting before the beloved Red Sox icon flew back to Boston in an air ambulance for additional procedures.
American private investigators hired by Ortiz said he was targeted by a Dominican drug trafficker who was jealous of him.
The findings by former Boston Police commissioner Ed Davis contradicted a previous theory by law enforcement in the Dominican Republic that the hitman was actually hired to shoot Ortiz’s cousin Sixto David Fernandez, who was sitting at the same table.
Dominican authorities said the hitmen confused Fernandez with Ortiz, one of the country’s most beloved ballplayers.
Jhoel Lopez Durán, a TV host in the Dominican Republic, was hit in the leg by the same bullet that struck Ortiz.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
