Shohei Ohtani interpreter pleads guilty to stealing millions from MLB star
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani, faces up to 33 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars from his former friend.
Mizuhara has admitted to bank fraud and filing a false tax return. In addition to a lengthy prison sentence, he must also pay $16,975,010 in restitution to Victim A, believed to be Ohtani.
Ohtani and Mizuhara became close friends outside of their working relationship after the player moved to the US from Japan to begin his Major League Baseball career with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. That relationship continued when Ohtani crossed LA to join the Dodgers joints for a 10-year period. , $700 million deal last December. But Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers in March after admitting he stole at least $4.5 million from Ohtani, baseball’s biggest star, to pay off gambling debts.
According to reports, the plea deal would include an admission that corroborates Ohtani’s version of events – that the player never bet on sports, had no idea Mizuhara did so and was the victim of a “massive theft” by his former friend. MLB players are banned from betting on baseball and face a lifetime ban if they are found to have placed a bet on their own team. The nearly 40 U.S. states where gambling is legal allow them to bet on other sports, but not in California, where Mizuhara and Ohtani are based. There is no evidence that Ohtani ever placed bets himself or was aware of Mizuhara’s gambling.
Mizuhara took advantage of his relationship with Ohtani to loot millions from the star’s account for years, sometimes posing as Ohtani to bankers, prosecutors said. Mizuhara’s winning bets totaled more than $142 million, and he deposited the money into his own bank account and not Ohtani’s. But his losing bets amounted to about $183 million, a net loss of almost $41 million. He didn’t bet on baseball.
The theft became public knowledge when wire transfers from Ohtani’s bank account were discovered in a federal investigation into an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara initially said Ohtani agreed to cover his gambling debts, but then backtracked and admitted Ohtani was unaware of the payment to the California bookmaker.
A rare player who excels as a pitcher and hitter, Ohtani is one of the most famous people in his home country. The scandal does not appear to have affected his performance on the field. He leads MLB in home runs and batting average and the Dodgers are atop their division, the National League West, by 6.5 games.