Cleveland Guardians Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been indicted in Brooklyn in a federal sports betting investigation — the latest in a string of pro sports figures to be busted in gambling scandals.
The two are accused of taking bribes to throw balls in the dirt or throwing balls instead of strikes, coordinating with gamblers who wagered on the speed and type of their pitches.
Major League Baseball suspended Clase and Ortiz in July amid a gambling probe and extended that leave until further notice in August.
Ortiz was arrested Sunday at Logan International Airport in Boston as he was taking a flight out of the country, while Clase remains free and is believed to be in the Dominican Republic.
Their indictment comes less than a month after three NBA stars — Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones — were busted in the federal takedown of a pair of sweeping gambling conspiracies. Those schemes included a mob plot that cheated players out of millions of dollars in rigged underground poker games, according to the feds.
Rozier and Jones are also charged with leaking inside information to accomplices who placed bets on online gambling platforms, in a case tied to the 2024 arrest of former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter.
Law enforcement sources say that while the allegations share similarities, Clase and Ortiz’s case is not connected to the NBA sports betting scandal.
