A Venezuelan woman wanted in connection with the 2019 shooting of Red Sox legend David Ortiz has been arrested, according to the Dominican Republic’s National Police.
Maria Fernanda Villasmil Manzanilla, 25, from Venezuela, has been captured through Interpol, according to a social media post by Dominican authorities. Manzanilla is being actively prosecuted with a “red notice” for his connection to the shooting, they said.
The charges Manzanilla faces are not immediately clear.
Ortiz, who won 3 World Series titles with the Red Sox, was shot in the back at point-blank range on June 9, 2019, while sitting at a bar in Santo Domingo.
The Hall of Fame designated hitter underwent emergency surgery in the Dominican Republic, and the Red Sox then arranged for him to be transported by air ambulance to Mass General Hospital, where he underwent more procedures and spent months recovering from his injuries.
In August 2019, Ortiz hired former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to lead a team of investigators that would conduct an investigation into the shooting.
Davis and his investigators later reported that Ortiz was shot after local drug lord Cesar “El Abusador” Peralta ordered him beaten. Davis’ findings contradicted the initial report by Dominican authorities, which claimed that Ortiz’s shooting was a case of identity, and that the intended target was Ortiz’s friend, Sixto David Fernandez, who was sitting with him at the bar.
In December 2022, 10 men were convicted in connection with Ortiz’s shooting.
Among the men already convicted are the gunman, Rolfi Ferreira Cruz, and his fugitive, Eddy Féliz García. Both were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Another defendant, Alberto Miguel Rodríguez Mota, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for paying Cruz, according to the Santo Domingo East prosecutor’s office.