Five tampering convictions survive Ortiz’s appeal

A Fifth Circuit panel left Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr.’s convictions in place, rejecting his bid for a new trial over testimony about Dr. MK’s death. In an unpublished per curiam opinion issued May 20, 2026, the judges said Ortiz had challenged the evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence, but they assumed without deciding that the trial court may have erred in admitting it.

That mattered because the appellate fight was never really about whether the testimony was unsettling. It was about whether it was powerful enough to have moved the jury off course. The court said it was not.

The harmless-error ceiling

The panel said there was substantial evidence of Ortiz’s guilt apart from the disputed testimony, and it pointed to the jury charge as another reason any spillover harm was blunted. That is the core of harmless-error review: even if a judge should have kept evidence out, a conviction can still stand if the rest of the case is strong enough.

Ortiz had asked the court to undo a verdict built on five tampering counts and five drug-adulteration counts. The judges did not do that. They left the convictions intact.

The convictions that remain

Ortiz was prosecuted in the Northern District of Texas as a Dallas anesthesiologist, and the judgment against him remains in place after the appeal. The ruling does not relitigate the underlying tampering case. It says only that this evidentiary complaint was not enough to erase the verdict.

For defendants challenging damaging other-acts evidence, the decision is a reminder that an appellate court can agree the testimony should not have come in and still refuse to disturb the result.