{"id":127052,"date":"2025-06-24T07:59:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T07:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/127052\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T07:59:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T07:59:19","slug":"dominican-prosecutors-seeking-five-years-in-prison-for-tampa-bay-rays-wander-franco-in-sex-abuse-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/127052\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominican Prosecutors Seeking Five Years In Prison For Tampa Bay Rays&#8217; Wander Franco In Sex Abuse Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"426\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-06-23-at-4.55.59-PM-600x426.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-771147\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Dominican authorities are requesting a five-year prison sentence for Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who is currently on administrative leave amid allegations of having a sexual relationship with a minor.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Associated Press, prosecutors claim Franco had a four-month relationship with a 14-year-old girl and transferred large sums of money to her mother, $68,500 and $35,000 reportedly found during a police raid of the mother\u2019s home. As a result, prosecutors are also seeking a 10-year sentence for the mother on sex trafficking charges.<\/p>\n<p>Franco\u2019s legal team maintains his innocence and has petitioned the court to drop the charges. \u201cWhat is Wander? Is he an accomplice of [the mother], or is he the material author of the criminal conspiracy offense?\u201d said defense attorney Irina Ventura in court.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"415\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-06-23-at-4.59.49-PM-600x415.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-771151\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old was enjoying a breakout season in 2023 before being placed on the restricted list in August when the allegations surfaced. He has not played in a Major League game since and remains on administrative leave under MLB\u2019s joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Franco was also charged in a separate case involving illegal gun possession following a November altercation. Authorities allegedly discovered a firearm in his vehicle during the incident.<\/p>\n<p>Franco\u2019s trial began on June 2 after several delays. He was initially facing up to 30 years in prison, but prosecutors are now pursuing a reduced sentence of five years. MLB\u2019s investigation into the matter remains ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominican authorities are requesting a five-year prison sentence for Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who is currently&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,1636,1888,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549,17803],"class_list":{"0":"post-127052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-child-sex-abuse","10":"tag-dominican-republic","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-rays","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabayrays","17":"tag-wander-franco"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114737287634668917","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}