Alden Gonzalez
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- ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
Multiple Authors
Major League Baseball has suspended a former top Dominican prospect after uncovering an elaborate age‑fraud plot that involved a fabricated death and a staged gravesite tombstone, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The MLB investigation revealed a series of extreme measures taken by the player’s handler to make him appear nearly two years younger, including forging a birth certificate to create a new identity, falsifying medical and school records, filing a fraudulent death certificate, and even constructing the gravesite scene, sources said.
The scheme began to unravel after the Cleveland Guardians agreed in December to a $2.8 million pre‑deal with a switch‑hitting infielder using the name David Severino. The club believed he was 13 or 14 years old and that the contract would be finalized in 2029, when he would be 17 and eligible to sign.
However, both Severino’s name and age were fictitious.
His true identity is Daury David Severino Damaso, born on April 2, 2010, making him 16 years old. In 2023, sources said, Francisco Nieves, Severino’s trainer at the time, allegedly created the alternate identity of David Severino Damaso—purportedly Daury’s younger brother—with the consent of the player’s parents. A late‑filed birth registration under that name listed a birthdate of Dec. 20, 2011, and falsified medical and school records were obtained under the same name.
From that point onward, Daury Severino Damaso was presented as David Severino Damaso.
Two years after the falsified birth registration, a fraudulent death certificate was filed for Daury, stating he died of a respiratory illness on May 5, 2012—two years after his actual birth. A fake tombstone was erected at a gravesite in La Romana, a municipality on the southeastern Dominican Republic coast, roughly 75 miles from Santo Domingo.
“You have to have [guts] to do something like this,” said John Pereyra, a trainer who worked with Severino, 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 the Guardians agreement, Pereyra said he was unaware of the false identity.
MLB officials declined to comment, as did Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti. Nieves, the trainer, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did Severino’s father.
Severino’s actual age would have made him eligible for the 2027 international amateur class, but his suspension will force him to wait an additional year before he can enter the market and sign with a team.
Severino impressed evaluators while competing against 12‑ and 13‑year‑olds, although he was actually at an age when he should have been playing in the Dominican Summer League alongside 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds. A scout noted that, if that had been the case, “He’s barely hanging on.”
Age and identity fraud are widespread on the international scene, especially in the Dominican Republic, the baseball‑rich nation that has produced many of MLB’s greatest players. Nevertheless, team executives, scouts and trainers with extensive experience in Latin America were stunned by the lengths to which Severino’s case went.
Pereyra, who has been in the business for nearly three decades, now runs an academy called Futuro Big Leaguers in Santiago, where he trains up to 12 youngsters at a time. Over 70 players have signed with major league clubs under his guidance.
Near the end of 2023, Pereyra saw Severino at a tryout after the identity change. He was impressed with the player’s skills but observed that he was underweight and needed further development. When asked his age, Severino claimed to be 11. When asked who he was training with, Pereyra was referred to Nieves. Eventually, Pereyra agreed to purchase the rights to Severino from Nieves for $20,000.
It remains unclear what prompted MLB to investigate Severino’s age. Even before the league’s inquiry, several clubs had grown suspicious.
“I had a scout tell me this Severino kid could really play,” an executive involved in international operations 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,” another executive remarked. “You could just tell he was older.”
Pereyra still houses Severino at his academy and does not hold him or his parents responsible for the scheme. The desperation of families living in impoverished regions of the Dominican Republic to secure six‑ or seven‑figure contracts often drives 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 the race to identify top talent in a baseball hotbed, major league clubs have for years been entering illegal, non‑binding agreements with players in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela well before they are eligible to sign, sometimes as early as age 10 or 11, according to league and team sources. The incentive to make young prospects appear more projectable at such ages has led to widespread steroid use to enhance strength and, in Severino’s case, to falsified documents aimed at making players seem younger.
Pereyra said he had heard of several fake‑age cases throughout his career but had never personally encountered one. Initially suspicious when he asked for Severino’s paperwork, he was told the birth was registered late—a common occurrence in the country’s poorest areas. When informed that Severino’s “brother” had died young, Pereyra was sufficiently skeptical to visit the gravesite personally. “I did my own investigation,” he said. Seeing the tombstone convinced him that Severino was who he claimed.
Then, sometime in May, Pereyra received a WhatsApp message from Nieves informing him that something had gone wrong with Severino’s contract and that MLB was investigating. Shortly thereafter, the deal collapsed.
The Guardians are not facing MLB discipline.
Pereyra is uncertain how he will recover the money he spent training Severino. He worries that his academy may not remain viable without the commission he had anticipated. His hope is that Severino eventually signs a six‑figure deal with another club.
A scout believes that if Severino does sign, it will likely be for $10,000.