Major League Baseball has suspended a once-prized Dominican prospect after uncovering an elaborate age-fraud plot that included a fictitious death and gravesite tombstone, sources familiar with the investigation told ESPN.
The MLB investigation uncovered a series of extreme efforts by the player's handler to make him appear nearly two years younger than he actually is, including faking a birth certificate to create a new identity, falsifying medical and school records, filing a fraudulent death certificate and even creating the gravesite scene, according to sources.
The caper began to unravel shortly after the Cleveland Guardians agreed in December to a $2.8 million pre-deal with a switch-hitting infielder going by the name of David Severino. The Guardians thought he was 13 or 14 years old and that the deal would be finalized in 2029, by which point Severino would be 17 and eligible to sign.
But Severino's name and age were both fake.
Severino's real name is Daury David Severino Damaso, according to sources. He is actually 16 years old, born on April 2, 2010. In 2023, sources familiar with the investigation said, Francisco Nieves, Severino's trainer at the time, allegedly created the identity of David Severino Damaso, who was purportedly Daury's younger brother, with the approval of the player's parents. A fake, late-filed birth registration was made under that name showing a birthdate of Dec. 20, 2011. Falsified medical and school records were also allegedly taken out under David's name.
From that point on, Daury Severino Damaso became David Severino Damaso.
Two years after the birth registration had been made, according to sources, a fraudulent death certificate was filed for Daury. It said he had died of a respiratory illness on May 5, 2012, two years after he was born. A fake tombstone was created and planted in a gravesite in La Romana, a municipality on the southeastern part of the Dominican Republic, 75 miles from the capital of Santo Domingo.
"You have to have [guts] to do something like this," John Pereyra, a trainer who worked with Severino, said 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."
Despite having trained Severino for two years leading up to his agreement with the Guardians, Pereyra says he did not know about the false identity.
An MLB official declined to comment, as did Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti. Nieves, the trainer, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Neither did Severino's father.
Severino's real age would have made him eligible for the class of 2027, but his suspension will force him to wait an extra year to enter the international amateur market and become eligible to sign with a team.
Severino impressed evaluators while competing against 12- and 13-year-olds, but he was doing so at an age when he should have been playing in the Dominican Summer League with 16- and 17-year-olds. If that would've actually been the case, a scout said, "He's barely hanging on."
Age and identity fraud run rampant on the international scene, especially in the Dominican Republic, the baseball-loving country that has produced some of MLB's greatest talents. But team executives, scouts and trainers with vast experience in Latin America were shocked to learn the lengths to which Severino's case went.
Pereyra has been in the business for close to 30 years, now running an academy called Futuro Big Leaguers out of Santiago, where he trains up to 12 kids at a time. He says more than 70 players have signed with major league teams under his watch.
Near the end of 2023, Pereyra saw Severino in a tryout after he had already changed his identity. He was impressed with his skills but noticed he was underweight and needed further development. He asked for his age and was told he was 11. When asked who he was training with, Pereya was directed to Nieves. Eventually, Pereyra agreed to purchase the rights to Severino from Nieves for $20,000.
It's unclear what prompted the league to look into Severino's age. But even before MLB's investigation began, several teams had grown suspicious.
"I had a scout tell me this Severino kid could really play," a team executive on the international side said. "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.'"
"The face was older," said another executive. "You could just tell he was older."
Pereyra still houses Severino at his academy and doesn't blame him for what took place. He also doesn't blame his parents, who went along with the plot. The desperation from people living in poverty-stricken regions of the Dominican Republic to obtain six- and seven-figure contracts often pushes them to extremes.
"When you have a kid," Pereyra said, "and you tell him, 'Look, your name is not Daury. If someone asks your name, you say, 'David Severino Damaso'' -- [he will] do it."
In a race to identify top-tier talent in a baseball hotbed, major league teams for years have been agreeing to illegal, nonbinding agreements with players in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela well before they're eligible to sign, sometimes as early as 10 and 11 years old, according to league and team sources. The incentive to make kids seem more projectable at exceedingly young ages has prompted widespread steroid use to make them stronger and, in Severino's case, falsified documents to make them seem younger.
Pereyra said he has heard of several fake-age cases throughout his career but had never personally confronted one. He was initially suspicious when he asked for Severino's documentation and learned his parents registered his birth late, though that is not uncommon in the poorest regions of the country. When he heard Severino's brother died young, Pereyra was skeptical enough to personally visit the gravesite. "I did my own investigation," he said. Seeing the tombstone made him believe Severino was who he claimed.
Then, sometime in May, Pereyra received a WhatsApp message from Nieves informing him something had gone wrong with Severino's contract and MLB was investigating it. Not long after, the deal fell apart.
The Guardians are not facing MLB discipline.
Pereyra doesn't know how he'll make back the money he spent training Severino. He worries that his academy might not stay afloat without the commission he was counting on. His hope is that Severino eventually signs a six-figure deal with another team.
A scout believes if he does sign, it'll probably be for $10,000.