EXPLOSIVE

Dominican Drug Lord Ordered Hit on Red Sox Icon David Ortiz: Report

The bombshell finding culminated a six-month investigation years after the 2019 shooting.

A six-month investigation by a former Boston police commissioner found that a Dominican Republic drug lord ordered a hit on iconic Red Sox slugger David Ortiz in 2019, leading to Big Papi’s close brush with death. Former top cop Ed Davis found that César “The Abuser” Peralta was angered by Ortiz after repeated skirmishes, prompting him to put a bounty on the baseball star’s head. “Peralta said he had David shot,” Davis told the Boston Globe, citing intel gathered by U.S. officials. Ortiz survived the 2019 point-blank shooting and commissioned Davis’ report. He told the Globe he was “sad, confused, angry, all kinds of emotions” when hearing the news and said he only casually knew Peralta. Dominican officials had tried to promote different reasons for the hit, including mistaken identity, but its theories have been ridiculed. The drug lord’s lawyer denied his client had anything to do with the hit. “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,” Joaquin Perez said.