It is time to face the music. Federal bank fraud charges were brought against Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter and close friend Ippei Mizuhara, who is accused of stealing millions from the two-way baseball star’s account to fund his addiction to sports gambling.
Prosecutors went over and laid out the charges against Mizuhara at a news conference in Los Angeles, claiming that Mizuhara used a whopping $16 million stolen from Ohtani’s account to pay off significant illegal gambling debts.
Prosecutors also stated there is no evidence Ohtani authorized the transfers from his account and painted the baseball superstar as a victim in the case. In a text message to a bookmaker, Mizuhara admitted that he was stealing the money from Ohtani’s account, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Mizuhara stole this money largely to finance his voracious appetite for illegal sports betting,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada.
Mizuhara was alongside Ohtani at a bank branch in Arizona when they opened the account back in 2018, translating for Ohtani to set up the account. Ohtani’s salary was deposited into the account, prosecutors said, and he never surrendered control of the account or any of his other financial accounts to Mizuhara, according to the affidavit.
“Mizuhara allegedly told Ohtani’s U.S.-based financial professionals, none of whom spoke Japanese, that Ohtani denied them access to the account,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Mizuhara began this whole fiasco gambling with an illegal sportsbook in 2021, according to prosecutors. Months later, he started losing “substantial” amounts of money and, at about the same time, contact information on Ohtani’s bank account was altered to link it to Mizuhara’s phone number and an anonymous email, prosecutors said.
Embed from Getty Images“Mizuhara allegedly also telephoned the bank and falsely identified himself as Ohtani to trick bank employees into authorizing wire transfers from Ohtani’s bank account to associates of the illegal gambling operation,” the DOJ’s statement continued. “From January 2024 to March 2024, he also allegedly used this same account to purchase via eBay and Whatnot approximately 1,000 baseball cards – at a cost of approximately $325,000 – and had them mailed to Mizuhara under an alias, ‘Jay Min,’ and mailed to the clubhouse for Ohtani’s current MLB team.”
Ohtani reportedly has been working with authorities during the investigation. The New York Times reports that the Mizuhara is negotiating a plea deal.
The scandal first came to light in mid-March after Mizuhara, Ohtani’s close friend and interpreter, was dismissed and shown the door for an alleged theft from Ohtani’s bank accounts to cover illegal gambling losses. Those gambling debts were to an illegal bookmaker in Orange County who was under IRS investigation. The reports indicated at least $4.5 million was transmitted from Ohtani’s bank account to the California bookie.
In an interview with ESPN on March 19, Mizuhara said that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. However, the next day, ESPN said Mizuhara’s story took a 360 degree turn dramatically changing his tune, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.
Authorities believe they have evidence that Mizuhara was able to manipulate the settings on Ohtani’s bank account so that he would not be kept abreast on notifications concerning transactions, according to the New York Times.
Ohtani and his representation have maintained that he was completely unaware of the “massive theft” until the news broke last month when the Dodgers were opening the season in South Korea against the San Diego Padres.
Major League Baseball launched its own independent investigation concurrent to the federal one by the IRS.
Ohtani has been able to remain on the field throughout the investigation.
