The fired ex-interpreter of Shohei Ohtani was charged today with stealing more than $16 million from the superstar’s bank account. Ippei Mizuhara made the illegal transfers to pay off his own gambling debts that he piled up over several years with an illegal bookmaker, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which filed the federal charges.
“Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said at a downtown Los Angeles news conference. The complaint includes dozens of incriminating messages allegedly sent between Mizuhara and the bookmaker.
In 2018, according to an affidavit filed with the federal criminal complaint, Mizuhara went with Ohtani, who didn’t speak English, to a bank branch in Arizona to help him open an account. Ohtani’s baseball salary was deposited in the account, and he never gave control of it to Mizuhara.
Mizuhara allegedly told Ohtani’s U.S.-based financial professionals, who do not speak Japanese, that Ohtani denied them access to the account.
Photo by Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Three years later, in September 2021, Mizuhara began gambling with the illegal sports book, and a few months after that, he started losing large sums of money, according to the affidavit. At this time, the contact information on Ohtani’s bank account was allegedly changed to link it to Mizuhara’s phone number and an anonymous e-mail connected to the interpreter.
Mizuhara also allegedly phoned the bank and falsely identified himself as Ohtani to trick bank employees into authorizing wire transfers to the gambling operation.
From this past January until last month, the 39-year-old also allegedly used the account to buy about 1,000 baseball cards at a total cost of $325,000 from eBay and Whatnot. He had them mailed to the Dodgers clubhouse under the alias “Jay Min.”
Ohtani denied authorizing the wire transfers in an interview with law enforcement last week, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Dodger provided his cell phone to law enforcement, who determined there was no evidence to suggest he was involved in Mizuhara’s alleged crimes.
According to the complaint, Mizuhara made about 19,000 bets, on average 25 a day, from December 2021 to January of this year. He had a net loss of more than $40 million.
Mizuhara is charged with bank fraud, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 30 years. He is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the near future.
Ohtani addressed the situation at a Dodger Stadium news conference last month.
“I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do it on my behalf, and I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports,” he said through interpreter Will Ireton.
