Former Pirates pitcher Felipe Vazquez sentenced to up to 4 years in prison for sex assault

Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Felipe Vazquez was sentenced Tuesday to serve up to four years in prison for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl.

Vazquez, 30, was convicted in May by a Westmoreland County jury of 15 offenses in connection with a sexual relationship he had with a Scottdale teen beginning in 2017 and lasting for nearly two years.

Judge Scott Mears ordered Vazquez to serve two to four years in prison and an additional two years on probation.

Because Vazquez has served about 23 months in jail since his arrest in September 2019, he will be eligible for parole next month.

“I am struck by the victim’s courage,” Mears said. “This is a tragic situation for everyone involved.”

Vazquez was convicted of charges of statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact or communication with a minor, indecent assault and corruption of a minor. He was found not guilty of 10 offenses related to sexually explicit text messages, pictures and videos prosecutors said Vazquez and the teen exchanged over the two years before his arrest in September 2019. The images were found by police on the pitcher’s laptop when they questioned him at his Strip District home.

Vazquez, a former all-star from Venezuela, faces criminal charges in Florida and Missouri in connection with events involving the same teen.

Florida authorities previously sought to extradite Vazquez to answer charges that he possessed child pornography, including pictures sent to him by the teen.

Defense attorney Gary Gerson said it was unclear when Vazquez would be sent to Florida and suggested that, ultimately, the former pitcher would be subjected to a deportation order and that his baseball career likely is over.

Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar argued for a longer sentence and, following Tuesday’s hearing, said the teen and her family were disappointed with the penalty imposed by the judge.

“We were hoping for a longer sentence, but we also know the real takeaway here is a young girl was victimized by a professional athlete who used his standing to have access to her and that she was able to stand up to him in court. The jury and judge believed her over him, and that’s a victory no matter what he gets,” Lazar said.

Vazquez, according to police, met the girl through social media when she was 13 in July 2017 and, after about a month, drove out to her home while her parents were out of town, met her in his car parked on the street in front of her residence and had sex with her before he drove back to Pittsburgh for a game.

They continued to exchange sexually explicit text messages and images until June 2019, when the teen’s mother discovered the relationship and alerted authorities in Florida, prosecutors said.

The teen, now 17, testified she suffers from depression and anxiety from her involvement with Vazquez. “He stole my innocence and robbed me of my high school years,” she testified.

Her parents told the judge they struggle with emotions that range from sorrow to guilt.

“Sentence this piece of … to the maximum amount possible,” the teen’s father told the judge.

At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, the judge rejected Gerson’s motion for an acquittal, in which he claimed evidence presented against Vazquez during the trial did not support the guilty verdicts. He argued, as he did at trial, that the teen was the sexual aggressor who lied about her age.

Vazquez claimed during his trial the teen sent him an image of a fake identification card, but police found no evidence to support that claim and his accuser denied doing so.

Gerson suggested Vazquez, who moved to the United States at 16 to play baseball, was a victim of cultural issues that rendered him unable to realize the teen was a minor.

“It was not unusual for women in Venezuela to remain in the home until they are married. He didn’t realize the local mores,” Gerson said.

The judge also rejected the defense’s request for a new trial based on claims that an all-white jury was biased against Vazquez because he was a Black and Hispanic professional athlete.