NEW YORK (AP) — Catcher Bo Naylor, a former teammate of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, testified Thursday at their New York sports betting trial that he didn't know gamblers could place bets on individual pitches until the criminal case arose.
Naylor, called as a defense witness out of turn because he is heading to his wedding, made the revelation under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney James Simmons, who asked if he knew such bets occurred at the time of 2025 baseball game recordings shown to a Brooklyn jury.
“I didn't know that before,” he said. “I didn't know that until the situation.”
“You didn't know people bet tens of thousands of dollars on pitches?” the prosecutor asked him, though Naylor was stopped from answering when an objection by defense lawyers was sustained.
The testimony reflected how quickly sports-betting possibilities have blossomed in recent years. Legal sports betting has spread to 39 states in a steady expansion since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for it in 2018.
Betting on whether a pitch will be a ball or strike is a form of prop betting, a popular type of wager often focused on individual players — like achieving a certain number of strikeouts in baseball, or points and rebounds in basketball or surpassing a particular passing yardage in football.
Naylor, who was traded by Cleveland to the Milwaukee Brewers in August just weeks before his new team won the World Series, was shown dozens of clips of pitches thrown by Clase and Ortiz in 2025 when he was questioned first by defense lawyers for the pitchers.
The lawyers elicited from Naylor that catchers notify pitchers what pitches they should throw and where they should aim them before each pitch.
Naylor said catchers and pitchers develop a strategy during pregame meetings of how to best pitch to each opponent to get an out based on an analysis of the weak spots in the hitting habits of each batter.
He also acknowledged that pitchers, even the best ones, cannot be sure that each pitch will go where it is aimed.
Clase, a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year, had “pretty good command” of his pitches, Naylor said.
Clase, 28, and Ortiz, 27, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges after they were filed a year ago. Prosecutors said the players accepted several thousand dollars in payments so sports gamblers could place bets on individual pitches, enabling the gamblers to pocket at least $460,000.
Prosecutors said Clase, who had completed the fourth season of a $20 million, five-year contract, began providing information about his pitches to bettors in 2023 and recruited Ortiz into the scheme in 2025. Ortiz earned $782,600 starting for the Guardians during the 2025 season.
Both are free on bail and are on nondisciplinary leave from the club without pay while facing prosecution.
Naylor, who studied Spanish so he could communicate better with Spanish-speaking teammates, acknowledged when he was being questioned by the prosecutor that he was not close friends with Clase or Ortiz.
Simmons also elicited from Naylor that he had frequently seen Clase on his cellular phone in the locker room.
Prosecutors have alleged that Clase sometimes broke Major League Baseball rules by communicating with gamblers during games.
Naylor also acknowledged that pitchers ultimately have the final say as to what pitch gets thrown because pitchers can wave off the catcher's call in favor of a different pitch.
At one point during his testimony, Naylor was asked by Clase's defense attorney, Michael Ferrara, if he had heard that Clase was into cockfighting with people he knew from the Dominican Republic, where he grew up.
Naylor said he had based on “rumors I heard around the clubhouse.”
Clase's lawyers have told the jury that the pitcher had friends who shared his enthusiasm for cockfights, which are legal in the Dominican Republic, and for playing dominoes, rather than sports gambling.
Milwaukee Brewers catcher Bo Naylor leaves Brooklyn federal court in New York on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, after testifying in the trial of his former teammates on the Cleveland Guardians, pitchers Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. (AP Photo/Larry Neumeister) Photo taken with a smartphone.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he’ll change more than 500 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, though the state Supreme Court will have the final say in hundreds of those cases.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in a public letter.
Newsom’s decision comes as he prepares to leave office after eight years and considers a run for president. The Democrat, who’s long been opposed to the death penalty, placed a moratorium on executions in California in 2019.
His latest move came after he realized “the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” he said.
Newsom moved to grant clemency to 548 people currently sentenced to death in California, of whom 529 are men and 19 are women, according to numbers provided by his office.
The state constitution requires the California Supreme Court’s approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which means the court would have to approve 382 of those commutations, or roughly 70%, according to Newsom's office.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Newsom’s action represents the largest mass clemency in American history. If they are all approved, it would reduce the U.S. death row population by nearly 30%, the center said.
Americans have long been divided over the death penalty. Nearly half of U.S. states have banned capital punishment outright, but executions are still carried out routinely around the country. On Thursday alone, Florida, Alabama and Indiana were scheduled to perform lethal injections.
Californians voted to uphold the death penalty in 2012 and 2016 ballot measures. No one has been executed in the state since 2006 and California has the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere.
Among the most notorious convicted killers on California’s death row are Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993, and Randy Kraft, the so-called “Scorecard Killer” who kept a list of his 16 victims in the 1970s and ’80s. Other prominent killers, including Scott Peterson and the Manson family members, received death sentences that were later commuted to life in prison.
Jess Nichol, Klaas' sister, said she previously believed Davis deserved the death penalty, but her views evolved.
“The system tells survivors that execution matters to our healing,” Nichol said in a statement. “It doesn’t. It’s a distraction from what we actually need.”
Newsom said the decision was among the most difficult choices of his career because it will surface painful memories for crime victims’ families.
“As Governor, I alone bear responsibility for this decision and its impact, just as I alone would bear responsibility for each execution,” Newsom wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has said the implementation of the death penalty reflects racial bias, applauded the announcement.
“These commutations reflect what justice demands: an end to a racist, error-prone, and inhumane punishment that has burdened California for far too long,” Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement.
The ACLU is involved in an ongoing legal challenge to California’s death penalty statute, alleging it is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Patricia Wenskunas, founder of the California advocacy nonprofit Crime Survivors, which opposed the abolition of the death penalty, criticized Newsom's decision.
“My heart hurts for every one of the victims and every one of their family members,” she said, calling the decision “offensive” and “outrageous.”
Steve Herr, whose son Sam Herr was murdered along with his friend Julie Kibuishi by Daniel Wozniak in 2010, said he was “absolutely disgusted” by the governor's decision. He said the death of his son's killer would have meant closure.
“When somebody commits such a heinous crime, they do not deserve to live,” Herr said. “To hear what Newsom just did … he’s just an outright coward.”
The California District Attorneys Association condemned the decision. Last month, the group sent a letter to Newsom expressing “grave concerns” about him considering the move and warning that such a sweeping action would inflict additional pain on victims’ relatives.
“With the stroke of a pen, Governor Newsom has disregarded the decisions of hundreds of jurors and judges, and the anguish of families who lost loved ones to the worst crimes imaginable,” CDAA President Jeannine M. Pacioni said in a statement. “The victims were never given a commutation. Their families were never given a choice. They deserve far better than this.”
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow called the move a “sickening abuse of power.”
Dow referenced Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford, two women who were kidnapped, raped and murdered by Rex Allan Krebs in 1999, and Kesha Gurke, a 19-month-old girl tortured and murdered by Michael Whisenhunt in 1995.
“San Luis Obispo County juries sentenced both men to death. A unanimous California Supreme Court affirmed both judgments. Their families have waited decades for the State of California to keep its word. Today, the Governor broke it,” Dow said.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer also condemned the decision, calling it “mercy for the wolves and while inflicting the ultimate act of cruelty on the sheep.”
Newsom has said in the past that it is wrong for the government to kill its citizens and that capital punishment in practice has discriminated against mentally ill people and people of color.
Other governors have granted broad clemency to all death row prisoners in their states, including Gov. Kate Brown in Oregon in 2022 and Gov. Jared Polis in Colorado in 2020. Both are Democrats.
In 2024, President Joe Biden also granted clemency to 37 out of 40 federal prisoners sentenced to death.
Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who will take over from Newsom in January, has said he will extend the state’s moratorium on the death penalty.
Ding and Weber reported from Los Angeles.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom attends a rally with members of the state's Democratic Party, organized labor, and other advocates in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Heather Diehl)
File - Chairs are lined up in the witness gallery outside the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif., Sept. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a campaign event ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a campaign event ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)
