The federal trial of former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz began on Monday, November 2, in Brooklyn, with jury selection for a case alleging that the two rigged pitches so gamblers could win prop bets.
Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the federal court in the Eastern District of New York is presiding, and the trial is expected to last about a month, ABC News reported. Clase, 28, a three time All-Star closer, and Ortiz, 27, a starter, have both pleaded not guilty. They are tried alongside Robinson Vasquez Germosen, an alleged bettor added in a February superseding indictment. All three are presumed innocent.
The charges
Each pitcher is charged with four conspiracies, to commit wire fraud, to commit honest services wire fraud, to launder money, and to influence sporting contests by bribery. Prosecutors allege that Clase began passing pitch information to two bettors from the Dominican Republic in 2023 and recruited Ortiz in 2025, and that the bettors won at least $460,000 on in game wagers about the speed and outcome of particular pitches, according to ABC. A later superseding indictment puts winnings across both pitchers at no less than $450,000, RG reported.
Prosecutors say Clase rigged at least 18 pitches in 17 games between May 19, 2023 and May 28, 2025. Ortiz is accused of manipulating two pitches, on June 15, 2025 against Seattle and June 27, 2025 against St. Louis. The government says the bets on those two Ortiz pitches were up to "136 times greater" than the bettors' average wager, and that the men used words like "rooster" and "chicken" as code. The sports bribery statute alone, 18 U.S.C. 224, carries up to five years in prison.
The defense is expected to argue there was no collusion, only pitchers varying location to fool hitters. "In isolation, any single pitch in the dirt can be painted as nefarious," Clase's lawyers wrote. Ortiz's lawyers called the case against him "remarkably thin."
Two blows to the prosecution before opening statements
On the eve of trial, the government told the court it would not call the cooperating gambler known in filings as Bettor-1. "They dropped a nuclear bomb on us, that they will not call to the stand what was going to be their main witness," said Clase lawyer Ferrara, according to RG. The defense says that if it called him, he would invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Matsumoto also barred prosecutors, for now, from raising Clase's roughly $500,000 IRS debt with the jury, evidence the government offered as motive, because it was turned over late. She left open its use in rebuttal. "The case has become personal and nastier than I'm used to. I am disappointed," the judge said at a pretrial conference. On October 30 the Second Circuit declined to pause the trial while it considers a sealed petition from Ortiz.
A slow start in the jury room
Of 115 prospective jurors brought in on Monday morning, 13 of the first 48 had been excused by 11:16 a.m., Inner City Press reported from the courtroom. When Matsumoto asked whether anyone would find it difficult to be impartial, eight raised their hands. Jurors were told the trial could run through December 3, and lawyers had prepared questions about baseball, betting apps and Dominican cockfighting culture.
Our arithmetic
By our count, the alleged Clase window runs 740 days from May 19, 2023 to May 28, 2025, which works out to one alleged rigged pitch about every 41 days. Adding Ortiz's two pitches to Clase's 18 gives 20 pitches. Dividing the indictment's $450,000 floor by those 20 pitches comes to about $22,500 in alleged winnings per pitch, against what the government describes as payoffs of only thousands of dollars to the pitchers. Clase's lawyers say he received about $20,000.
Early attrition was steep. Thirteen of 48 is 27 percent of the first panel gone in roughly half an hour of questioning. The scheduled trial, November 2 to December 3, spans 31 days, and the government says it may rest by Thanksgiving.
Why it matters beyond baseball
The case is the most direct test yet of federal prosecutors' theory that a single pitch can be bought. It follows a run of sports betting prosecutions, including the NBA case covered in Malik Beasley Moves Toward a Guilty Plea in the NBA Betting Case. MLB has asked sportsbooks to cap individual pitch bets at $200 and keep them out of parlays. With the main cooperator off the witness list, jurors will be asked to infer intent from pitch data and messages, which is exactly the kind of case where reasonable doubt does its work.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
