Texas Rangers Prospects Questioned by Police in Sexual Assault Investigation
Some disturbing news surfaced afternoon in the baseball world, as Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports broke the story about eight Texas Rangers prospects being questioned by Police in a Sexual Assault investigation in the Dominican Republic.
In one of the more disturbing stories that I have read in quite some time, eight Texas Rangers prospects are currently the center of a Sexual Assault investigation by Law Enforcement authorities in the Dominican Republic after disturbing videos surfaced of sexual acts involving minors, in what were alleged to be acts of hazing.
Please keep in mind before reading the rest of this story, that the details of the incident are graphic in nature, contain sexual acts and are may be disturbing to many people.
Video has surfaced of a group of players sexually assaulting an underage teammate in a hazing act, that was focused on players that were new to the teams Dominican complex.
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The video of the acts were recorded via the popular social media application, Snapchat, which allows users to record videos up to ten seconds in length and send it to individuals withing their contacts, or share it with all of their contacts at once.
The video showed at least four players holding down a juvenile teammate, on a bed with his arms behind his head, wearing a Rangers shirt and shorts, as the alleged offenders exposed the players penis, and proceeded to perform an act of masturbation on the juvenile teammate.
All of the men involved in the video, including the alleged victim, were seen laughing in the video obtained by Yahoo Sports.
Many people use the Snapchat application to send and receive images and video snippets, because they “disappear” after the selected time frame that range from three to ten seconds in length.
According to Snapchat’s most recent Law Enforcement Guide, released on October 11, 2016 Snapchat states, “We retain logs of the previous 31-days of Snaps and may, under certain limited circumstances, store the content of users’ unopened Snaps, as well as unexpired Story posts, unopened or saved Chats, and Memories.”
Snapchat also provides Law Enforcement officials with requested video accompanied by written statements of authenticity in lieu of witness testimony. Snapchat also retains the records of user information, and internet provider address information for a period of time even after the subscriber deletes their Snapchat account.
According to Yahoo Sports, the alleged assault was one of a number of incidents involving Venezuelan and Colombian players, some of whom were minors at the time of the respective incidents.
The mentioned incident took place in late October, and the parties involved were questioned on November 9 by Dominican Law Enforcement officials after the Texas Rangers brought the incident to Law Enforcement authorities. The Incidents occurred at the Rangers facility in Boca Chica, D.R., where their two Dominican Summer League teams play and players from across Latin America train.
While Dominican prosecutors have not yet filed charges against the parties involved, it is believed that they will in fact charge at least four players involved in the near future. Among those players expected to be charged are Rougned Odor, and Yohel Pozo, both of whom are 19 years of age. Odor is the younger brother of Rangers second-baseman Rougned Odor, both of whom share the same first name.
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The identities of the other parties involved in the incident have not been released by law enforcement officials due to the other parties involved being juveniles. The players facing potential charges have been told not to leave the country, according to sources.