A Dominican tombstone declares the death of Daury Severino Damaso at 2-years-old due to respiratory sickness in 2012.
The only drawback? Damaso is very much alive — and until just lately was a heralded worldwide baseball prospect going by the title of David Severino in a foiled $2.8 million plot uncovered in an MLB investigation, according to ESPN.
In May, the Cleveland Guardians canceled an settlement with the teen identified to them as Severino, believed to be 13 or 14 years outdated, after discovering he was two years older than reported, according to MLB insider Wilbar Sanchez.
Severino was actually Damaso, a faux title cooked up by his coach, Francisco Nieves, in 2023.
The rip-off also included a fugazi beginning certificates with a beginning date of Dec. 20, 2011, plus faux medical and faculty information for Severino, per ESPN. A later addition to the con was the tombstone, planted in the La Romana municipality of the Dominican Republic.
The Guardians, MLB and Nieves declined remark to ESPN.
Playing with 12-13 12 months olds when he should have been taking part in against those aged 16-17, Severino impressed evaluators.
“You have to have [guts] to do something like this,” John Pereyra, a coach at Futuro Big Leaguers in the Dominican Republic who labored with Severino, informed ESPN in Spanish. “I’ve heard about false birth documents and stuff like that, but to put together what this guy did — that’s movie stuff. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that in the Dominican. In my life, I have never seen anything like that.”
Pereyra bought Severino’s rights for $20,000 in 2023 after being informed he was 11, a resolution that could now financially imperil his baseball academy with the teen — who could have been eligible for the class of 2027 — suspended from signing with a workforce on the worldwide market until 2028.
One scout telling ESPN a six-figure payday could now be a $10,000 pittance.
MLB executives informed the outlet they knew something was amiss.
“I went to see him and the first thing I thought was, ‘There’s no way this kid is the age he says he is’,” one said, with another including, “The face was older. You could just tell he was older.”
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