A Dominican Republic appeals court ordered a new trial for Wander Franco, less than six months after the Tampa Bay Rays shortstop received a two-year suspended prison sentence for sexual abuse of a minor, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Franco, 24, and the mother of the victim were sentenced in June, nearly two years after investigators opened the case into his illegal relationship with a then-14-year-old girl.
The investigation unveiled what prosecutors said were two payments to the mother of the victim from Franco totaling more than $100,000 to allegedly allow the relationship to continue for nearly two months starting in 2022.
Prosecutors pushed for a sentence of five years for the 2023 All-Star, who has been on administrative leave from the Rays since the allegations surfaced on social media in August 2023.
Franco’s attorneys pushed to have his conviction suspended and sentencing overturned, with the appeals court ruling in Franco’s favor and ordering a new panel of judges to oversee the case.
“The court understood that there were many flaws, many omissions … many issues, and decided to send the case to a new trial,” Franco’s attorney, Teodosio Jaquez, told the AP.
It is not clear when the new trial will take place.
The district attorney for the province of Puerto Plata, Jose Martinez Montan, who also was the prosecutor for the initial trial, told the AP, “In a new trial, the procedures will be re-evaluated. We won the case in the first trial, and we expect the same in the new trial.”
The initial trial was delayed by the failure of 33 of the 36 planned witnesses to appear in court in December and ended with sentencing in June.
Franco spoke only once during the trial, when he told the judge “Let justice be done” in a brief statement.
Franco also faces separate charges of illegal possession of a firearm from a November 2024 incident in the Dominican Republic in which police responded to the site of an altercation involving Franco and found a gun in the car he was driving.
After the completion of criminal proceedings in the Dominican Republic, MLB is expected to complete its own ongoing investigation. Franco likely will face a suspension under the league’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy, which does not require criminal charges or a conviction.
Franco was moved to the MLB’s restricted list in July 2024. He remains under contract to the Rays, who signed him to an 11-year, $182 million contract extension in 2021. He is not paid while on the MLB restricted list.
The victim’s mother – who was found guilty of charges of sexual exploitation and human trafficking with a sentence of 10 years in prison and seizure of assets acquired through criminal money laundering – also was granted a new trial by the Dominican appeals court, per the AP.
