By: Sean Crose
On Friday, former lightweight Felix Verdejo was found guilty in the April 2021 deaths of his pregnant girlfriend, Keishla Rodriguez, and her unborn child. At the time members of Rodriguez’ family informed authorities she intended to meet the fighter to let him know she was carrying his child. Some time later, Rodriguez was discovered dead in a San Juan, Puerto Rico lagoon. After at first refusing to help authorities working on the case, Verdejo ultimately handed himself over to the FBI. He was subsequently charged by authorities.
As Boxing Insider wrote at the time, “the prosecution alleged that Verdejo and Cadiz-Martinez (who went on to become a prosecution witness) led Ortiz into a vehicle on April 30th. Verdejo then punched her and injected the pregnant woman with a drug. Having bound Ortiz with wire and having tied her to at least one brick, both men drove out to a bridge, where Verdejo subsequently threw Ortiz into the water. The former Olympian then reportedly fired a gun at Ortiz, though the cause of death for Ortiz was drowning.”
After a six-plus week long trial, the jury on Friday found Verdejo guilty of a kidnapping that led to a death, and to bringing about the death of an unborn child. Judge Pedro Delgado Hernandez set November 3’d aside as the date Verdejo will be sentenced. Verdejo could have faced the death penalty, but the Justice Department decided against the possibility of sentencing Verdejo to Capital Punishment. With that being said, the former Olympic and 27-2 professional fighter might find himself spending the rest of his life incarcerated.
“May he live the rest of his life thinking about everything he did to my daughter,” José Antonio Rodríguez, Keishla’s father, said afterwards via Telemundo Puerto Rico and the New York Post.
