Sports
Ex-Dodger Raúl Mondesi free after serving 7 years under house arrest for embezzling millions
Raúl Mondesi is a free man.
The former Dodgers outfielder had been on house arrest since a 2017 conviction for embezzlement of public funds associated with his role as mayor of his Dominican Republic hometown, San Cristóbal.
A Dominican court ruled Friday that Mondesi’s original sentence of six years, nine months in prison had been satisfied by the duration of the house arrest. In 2017, in addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay a $1.3 million fine for defrauding more than $6 million and was barred from holding public office for 10 years. Three of Mondesi’s staff members also were sentenced.
Mondesi, 53, was a mercurial figure as a ballplayer, a tremendous talent who invited comparisons to Roberto Clemente but who was prone to emotional outbursts and flouting rules with the Dodgers and five other teams during his 13-year career.
One of seven children raised by his mother, Martina, in a tiny home in San Cristóbal, he vowed to buy a new house for his mother after signing a one-year, $435,000 contract with the Dodgers after winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1994.
“My mother, she’s like superwoman,” he told The Times. “I can’t tell you what she means to me. My father died when I was 7, and she had to do everything. She worked in a laundry just to put food on the table.”
Mondesi twice joined the elite 30-30 club — hitting at least 30 home runs and stealing at least 30 bases — in his six-plus seasons with the Dodgers from 1993 to 1999. He won two Gold Gloves for his play in right field and early on earned a reputation as a hard worker.
He also enjoyed immense popularity in the Dominican Republic.
“He’s a hero in our country, a genuine hero,” Dodgers shortstop and countryman Jose Offerman said in 1995. “We’ve had a lot of players come through the Dominican … but I don’t know if anyone’s been more popular than Raúl.”
Mondesi would pack dozens of bats, gloves, and pairs of shoes and send them to Dominican kids each year.
“I never had anything when I grew up,” he said. “I’d play baseball, and all I’d have is cardboard for a glove. I would have given anything to have a real glove and bat.
“I want to help those kids. A lot of them are poor families. They can’t afford baseball equipment, so I help them.”
Four years later, however, Mondesi was a disgruntled powder keg who demanded a trade in a profanity-laced tirade against Dodgers manager Davey Johnson and general manager Kevin Malone in August 1999.
“I can’t take this anymore,” he told The Times. “I’ve had to deal with this all year. I told them to trade me because I don’t want to [expletive] be here. … “F— Davey and f— Malone, they try to put all of our problems on me. They’re trying to say that all this [s—] is my fault. That’s the way they feel, fine. Just get me out of here.”
Mondesi was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays that offseason and had three productive seasons before bouncing around as a reserve with four teams — including an eight-game stint with the Angels in 2004 — and retiring in 2005.
He earned $66.5 million during his career and returned to San Cristóbal, a dusty, overcrowded and impoverished city of 700,000. He expressed an interest in politics, and in 2006 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies — the Dominican equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives — as a member of President Leonel Fernandez’s Dominican Liberation Party.
Mondesi jumped to the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party during his second term, where he remained when elected mayor of San Cristóbal in 2010. The former player with a grade-school education was chosen as the party’s candidate over former major league pitcher José Rijo, another local hero who had returned home.
The two former players who earned more than $100 million between them lived in neighboring mansions, surrounded by 8-foot walls and protected by armed guards. Three years earlier, both were fined for rigging illegal connections to their homes that allowed them to use electricity without paying for it.
Soon after winning the election, Mondesi allegedly became engaged in questionable financial transactions. He served through 2016, when he and several other party leaders were charged with “conspiracy of officials, falsification of documents, use of false documents, prevarication, embezzlement, and crimes of mixing in affairs incompatible with the quality of official and association of criminals.”
Mondesi was convicted and put under house arrest while his case was appealed, a slow process that did not conclude until Friday.
In 2020, authorities petitioned the court to send Mondesi to prison for the remainder of his sentence because he was alleged to have violated the terms of the house arrest. Nothing came of it, and in 2023, the Court of Appeals of San Cristóbal ordered a new trial.
Despite avoiding jail, Mondesi’s precipitous decline from Dodgers darling to an explosive under-performer on the field, and from hometown hero and mayor to convicted thief off the field, was shocking.
It was a far cry from the glowing prediction from Al LaMacchia, the Blue Jays vice president of baseball operations, after Mondesi was acquired from the Dodgers 25 years ago.
“He won’t have to worry about money the rest of his life,” LaMacchia said. “His strength is close to Clemente, and if his instincts allow him to make the changes that he needs to make, he may be one of those that you remember for a long, long time.”
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Top Milwaukee Brewers prospect Frank Cairone was hospitalized after being involved in a serious car accident near his New Jersey home on Friday, the team announced.
“Frank is currently being cared for at a hospital in New Jersey with the support of his family,” read a statement from the team, via MLB.com. “The Brewers’ thoughts and prayers are with Frank and his family during his difficult time.”
Pitcher Frank Cairone (left) with Green Valley High School (NV) infielder Caden Kirby during the MLB Draft Combine high school baseball game at Chase Field. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
The left-handed pitcher turned 18 this past September. He was drafted out of Delsea Regional High School in Franklinville, N.J. at No. 68 overall in the 2025 Draft.
News of the Brewers’ young prospect’s accident came shortly after the team announced it was not in contact with several players in Venezuela after U.S. military strikes in the country and the capture of its President Nicolás Maduro.
MLB TEAM UNAWARE OF STATUS OF PLAYERS IN VENEZUELA AFTER US MILITARY STRIKES
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio (11) is seen before the fifth inning of an MLB game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Toronto Blue Jays on August 31, 2025, at Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON. (Mathew Tsang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold revealed the team is unaware of the status of the players in a statement Saturday.
“We don’t have much info at the moment but are trying to follow up,” Arnold said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We know the airports have been shut down but not much beyond that.”
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Pitcher Frank Cairone during the MLB Draft Combine high school baseball game at Chase Field. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
The team’s players in Venezuela include star outfielder Jackson Chourio, infielder Andruw Monasterio and catcher Jeferson Quero, according to the outlet.
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It might be time to write a folk song about the demise of City Section basketball using the music of Peter, Paul and Mary and the new title, “Where Have All the Players Gone?”
The talent level clearly has hit rock bottom only a year after Alijah Arenas was a McDonald’s All-American at Chatsworth High and Tajh Ariza led Westchester to the City Section Open Division title. Because their parents went to City Section schools, Arenas and Ariza stuck it out. Then Arenas graduated early to join USC and Ariza left for St. John Bosco, then prep school.
Westchester is where Ed Azzam won 15 City titles in 42 seasons until his retirement in 2021. Crenshaw is where Willie West won 16 City titles and eight state titles. Taft is where Derrick Taylor won four City titles and coached future NBA players Jordan Farmar, Larry Drew II and AJ Johnson. Fairfax is where Harvey Kitani coached for 35 years, won four City titles and two state titles and earned most of his nearly 1,000 victories. He was followed by Steve Baik and Reggie Morris Jr., each of whom won City championships before leaving.
None of the City schools once considered among the best in Southern California are even close to resembling their glory days, and they aren’t alone. The City Section has lost most of its talent, and it was truly Hall of Fame talent: Marques Johnson and John Williams at Crenshaw; Gail Goodrich at Sun Valley Poly; Willie Naulls at San Pedro; Dwayne Polee at Manual Arts; Gilbert Arenas at Grant; Trevor Ariza at Westchester; Chris Mills at Fairfax. There were decades of success.
There’s no one person to blame. You can’t even place the downfall solely on the Los Angeles Unified School District, whose high schools compete in the City Section.
But LAUSD has done nothing to reverse the trend and didn’t help matters by opening so many new schools in such rapid fashion that longtime legacy schools lost their luster amid declining student enrollment. Things became even more disruptive by the rise of charter schools and private schools taking away top athletes. Adding to that, the loss of veteran coaches frustrated by bureaucracy issues and rules that force programs to secure permits and pay to use their own gyms in the offseason helped further the exodus.
Westchester is 2-8 this season and an example of where City Section basketball stands. Two top players from last season — Gary Ferguson and Jordan Ballard — are now at St. Bernard. Westchester doesn’t even have a roster posted on MaxPreps. King/Drew won its first City Open Division title in 2024 under coach Lloyd Webster. This season Webster sent his senior son, Josahn, to Rolling Hills Prep to play for Kitani. King/Drew is 4-10.
Charter schools Birmingham, Palisades and Granada Hills have separated themselves in virtually all City Section sports including basketball. They have no enrollment boundaries as long as there’s a seat for a student. Palisades lost so many students after the wildfire last year that transfers have been big additions for its teams this school year. Online courses are being offered to help students enroll and compete in sports at charter schools.
The old powers from the inner city — Crenshaw, Dorsey, Jefferson, Locke and Fremont — experienced big changes in demographics. Many coaches are walk-ons and not teachers. The legacy schools have to compete with charter schools View Park Prep, Triumph, Animo Watts, Animo Robinson, WISH Academy and USC-MAE. When young players are discovered and developed, rarely will they stay when one of the private schools or AAU coaches searching for talent spots them in the offseason.
So what’s left? Not much.
Palisades, Washington Prep and Cleveland look like the three top teams this season. All three added transfers to help buck the downward trend. And yet their records are 3-10, 8-8 and 7-6, respectively, against mostly Southern Section teams.
Maybe this can be a fluke one-year plunge to the bottom and the climb back up can begin, aided by coaches who recognize their job is to teach lessons in basketball, life and college preparation. Parents need a reason to send their kids to a City Section school. It’s up to LAUSD and principals to help change the trajectory by finding coaches with integrity, passion and willingness to embrace the underdog role.
There are plenty in the system doing their best. It’s time to start hearing and answering their pleas for help.
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The Seattle Seahawks locked down the top seed in the NFC playoffs and a strong path to the Super Bowl on Saturday night with a season finale win over the San Francisco 49ers.
Seattle also finished with their best regular season record in franchise history, clinching 14 wins for the first time ever.
The Seahawks held on to a 10-point victory despite outgaining the 49ers 363 yards to 173, and running 64 plays to San Francisco’s 42.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba #11 of the Seattle Seahawks fails to catch the ball against Ji’Ayir Brown #27 of the San Francisco 49ers during an NFL game on Jan. 3, 2026 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire)
Seattle missed a field goal in the fourth quarter and turned the ball over on downs in the first quarter to waste two red zone drives, but dominated on defense to prevent those missed opportunities from coming back to haunt them.
The 49ers wasted their best drive of the night as well when quarterback Brock Purdy was intercepted at Seattle’s three-yard line in the fourth quarter facing a 10-point deficit, which seemingly secured the game for the Seahawks.
NFL WEEK 17 SCORES: AFC NORTH, NFC SOUTH UP FOR GRABS AS PLAYOFF PICTURE ALMOST COMPLETE
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, in his first season on the team, completed 20 passes on 26 attempts for 198 yards and helped set up the only touchdown of the entire game in the first quarter.
Darnold redeemed a disappointing Week-18 game for the Minnesota Vikings last season when he completed just 18 of 41 passes for 166 yards in a battle for the top seed against the Detroit Lions.
Darnold said “Learning from mistakes, and staying calm from the pocket,” made the difference in his performance Saturday compared to a year ago, in a postgame interview with ESPN.
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Jaxon Smith-Njigba #11 of the Seattle Seahawks carries the ball against the San Francisco 49ers during the second quarter of a game at Levi’s Stadium on January 03, 2026 in Santa Clara, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy had just 127 yards with the late interception, and took a big hit on his final pass of the night, then took a while to get back up. He was eventually able to walk off the field, and Seattle ran the clock out.
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