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A gang leader has been sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for orchestrating a 2023 gambling operation and heading up a list of extortion schemes.
The man identified as Luis Ramirez, head of the Los Angeles Riverside County-based street gang, has been found to have organized the illegal activity while already incarcerated on separate charges.
Gang leader sentenced for extortion plot
U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., who ordered that Ramirez’s federal term run consecutively to his existing life sentence in California state prison, determined that he broke multiple laws whilst incarcerated.
Ramirez allegedly continued to organize and control the Westside Riva (WSR), a Jurupa Valley-based street gang, and carried out the acts as part of a wider swathe of violence and criminal intimidation.

Leader of Inland Empire street gang sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for ordering 2023 kidnapping in Riverside https://t.co/w2mxcOy9pi
— US Attorney L.A. (@USAO_LosAngeles) January 13, 2026

This included, says the Department of Justice (DoJ) publication, that the WSR under his command “conducted, managed, and supervised an illegal gambling business within its territory. It required other gambling businesses operating within its territory to pay a portion of revenue for the gang’s permission to operate.”
Court filings and reports by the LA Times have indicated that the WSR has, at times, explored a host of alleged activities beyond drug trafficking and extortion, including illegal gambling operations and, in the case of Ramirez, extortion.
Ramirez’s deal shows VICAR plea
The plea deal and the court documents presented also show that the WSR, under Ramirez’s instruction, demanded “taxes” be paid in exchange for protection.
This extortion of local businesses was a long list of criminal behaviour that the WSR allegedly committed in a region they had designated as “territory.”
The gang leader, in Judge Blumenfield Jr’s decision, accepted the activity he orchestrated in connection with violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR).
Ramirez’s plea, according to the DoJ, shows his ordering of the 2023 kidnapping of a victim identified as “Person 1.”
Prosecutors said two gang associates abducted and held the victim inside a Riverside clothing store for several days without regular access to food or medication before she escaped on October 1, 2023.
Both co-defendants, Jose Jonathan Rubalcaba Alarcon, 23, and Gilbert Rey Martinez, 22, later pleaded guilty and received federal prison sentences of 46 months and 41 months, respectively.
Featured image: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
The post Gang leader sentenced to 9 years after running illegal gambling and extortion schemes appeared first on ReadWrite.

Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase, both Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians, have reaffirmed that messages presented as evidence referred to rooster betting, not baseball gambling.
Clase and Ortiz are defendants in a federal illegal gambling case that has shaken the MLB and caused gambling lines on pitching to be revised as a result.
Prosecutors have built a case based on intercepted correspondence, including references to animals, logistics, and routine matters, which they allege are not literal but served as code words to disguise illegal sports betting activity.
Defence insists that intercepted messages are about animals
As we reported, the court proceedings for both men have begun in a case alleging that both participated in a protracted baseball betting scheme.

Two Current Major League Baseball Players Charged in Sports Betting and Money Laundering Conspiracy https://t.co/uHE2ohObCc (Announced with @NewYorkFBI)
— US Attorney EDNY (@EDNYnews) November 9, 2025

The charges laid out for the icons include wire fraud conspiracy, Honest services wire fraud conspiracy, Conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and Money laundering conspiracy.
As part of the initial round of proceedings, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York heard the evidence presented, according to the pitcher’s defence related to rooster breeding, rather than pitch-speed betting.
Defence is adamant that messages are misrepresented
Both men hail from the Dominican Republic, where rooster breeding and fighting are, in part, legal, which has formed a pillar of their defence case.
The defence filing reviewed by ReadWrite identifies an individual only as “Bettor 1,” the individual alleged to have had substantive contact with Clase, whose sworn testimony denies any baseball gambling conspiracy.
“Emmanuel never provided me with any form of information on the pitches he intended to throw in a game to allow me to win a bet,” Bettor 1 stated.
They argue that the prosecution’s allegations that both men communicated in “coded language” is a misrepresentation.
The defence also highlighted that the defendants had correspondence about betting, but it concerned rooster breeding and fighting, stating, “They (those in the communications) used their words to mean exactly what those words said.”
The affidavit read, Bettor 1 “did have communications with Mr. Clase regarding gambling on rooster fights in the Dominican Republic.”
Both players remain on non-disciplinary paid leave from MLB as the criminal case proceeds, and, as a result of the case, pitch betting in the US has undergone a regulatory change.

MLB and its major sportsbook partners just announced new limits on pitch-level markets: pic.twitter.com/nrNdk4LXJ5
— Gary Phillips (@GaryHPhillips) November 10, 2025

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in May 2026, when a court will ultimately determine whether the government’s interpretation of the alleged coded language can stand the rigours of the scrutiny required move forward.
Featured image: ESPN via YouTube / Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0
The post Clase and Ortiz defense says messages were about roosters, not baseball appeared first on ReadWrite.