Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accuse interpreter of ‘massive theft’ tied to alleged gambling
- Thread starter soxhop411
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Yeah, uh, I can’t get here.
The facts as we know them, coupled with the bizarre way this story has unfolded, warrants skepticism.
Was that the $4m wager one? Yeah that was laughable as if there are bookies in California take 4-mill on a prop bet LOL!! Now if this book was in Asia it would be more believable. Shit is crazy out there from what I’ve heard.
Uh no...it isn't. No even close. I would wire money who happens to be a bookie and that would not be at all evidence that I placed a bet on anything. That's like saying I gave money to a casino to pay for food at a restaurant and that is proof that I was gambling at black jack.
It's pretty clear that people won't get off of their preconceived ideas of what Ohtani did or didn't do. My whole point was that there is no evidence (YET) that he has bet on sports. There is evidence he transfered lots of money and also some sort of weird convoluted confession by the translator.
Like I get it, there is some suspicious shit going on, but also you can take what is being said at face value. Everyone seems to be wrapped up in the whole "OMG, how could he have given his friend so much money"...and speaking as someone who HAS given a friend lots of money (and if you want to talk about percentage of annual salaries rather than focus on the millions, then it's a lot more understandable) you might never know what your friend used it for, or if you transferred it to some random person that your friend asked you to do it for.
Some of you guys are so quick to go with guilty with so few hard facts figured out yet. I get it, it's a forum and that is what we discuss, but I don't think it's out of this world to think that there was nothing Ohtani did that was illegal or nefarious and was just a victim of a "friend" scamming him...which friends that have gambling problems will certainly do.
Lied about working for the Red Sox (and the Yankees as well I think?).
Lied about his education.
As far as I can tell, he was going to be Okajima's translator if he caught on with the Yankees, but Okajima failed his physical and was released. Mizuhara moves to Hokkaido, where he was born, and starts working with the Ham Fighters, right when Ohtani arrives. They become buddies and Mizuhara follows him to the US.
https://sports.yahoo.com/ippei-mizuhara-shohei-ohtanis-interpreter-190326198.html
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/03/25/questions-raised-about-resume-of-shohei-ohtanis-ex-interpreter/
According to his bio in the Angels media guide, Mizuhara was a graduate of Cal-Riverside, but the school says no one by his name was ever enrolled there. He was also said to have been Okajima's translator with the Red Sox and during his really brief time in the Yankees organization, except he wasn't. Granted, I'm not sure what the source of that was, possibly it was someone else's mistake, but it sounds like he may have exaggerated a connection to Okajima over the years to pad the resume.
I think all of that has already been mentioned in this thread and was covered in an article by The Athletic.
I'm only following all of this as far as I feel compelled to stay in the loop (and will gladly bow back out of this discussion) because I think it @#%*ing sucks that opening day is less than 3 days away and all talk of baseball has to be dominated by a scandal.
What you're saying here is not consistent with Ohtani's words. Ohtani literally said "he stole money from my account" and "I just found out about it a couple days ago". He also said "up until that team meeting, I didn't know Ippei had a gambling addiction and was in massive debt."
This 'he was helping his friend' possibility you're referencing is over. Ohtani is outright denying it - that was Mizuhara's story and Ohtani's team's initial story, but Ohtani is now clearly accusing Mizuhara of doing all of this 100% in secret.
The only possibilities are some variants of Ohtani telling the truth here and being oblivious to millions of dollars of wires (which if true is a perfect defense) or him knowing about this in some way / being involved and throwing his friend and employee to the wolves. Mizuhara can't just be paid off - federal embezzlement crimes mean he'd go to jail.
Look, I get it. His blood and DNA were all over the crime scene, and there was a trail of the victims’ blood following him everywhere he went. Like, I get it.
But my whole point was, there’s no evidence!
Thanks for the response. I've no interest in defending the guy, but I think the Okajima connection may have had some people assuming he was with Okajima when he was with the Sox. If that's the case I just think that we as a whole should acknowledge.
I haven't seen this anywhere, is this really true? Japanese media reports only so far, or picked up in the US?
And if it gets to that stage, Ohtani will have to answer actual questions ... from investigators who will ask more difficult ones that the reporters at his statement reading would have
I wonder how it feels to be Ohtani's new interpreter, translating him saying that his prior interpreter is a con artist at a press conference.
In all seriousness... despite how odd everything is, based on that press conference I kind of think Ohtani is either generally telling the truth (while maybe leaving some inconvenient details out) or just super naive.
This was just a very unnecessary accusation to make in this direct, public, and personal of a way. He could have been less pointed, said he wasn't sure what happened, said he would wait for the investigation to shed light, used a spokesperson instead of doing it himself, etc. If you were lying, why would you expose yourself to this degree? Just very unforced... which leads me to lean slightly toward he's either telling the truth as he sees it or is completely oblivious to how dumb this was.
In all seriousness... despite how odd everything is, based on that press conference I kind of think Ohtani is either generally telling the truth (while maybe leaving some inconvenient details out) or just super naive.
This was just a very unnecessary accusation to make in this direct, public, and personal of a way. He could have been less pointed, said he wasn't sure what happened, said he would wait for the investigation to shed light, used a spokesperson instead of doing it himself, etc. If you were lying, why would you expose yourself to this degree? Just very unforced... which leads me to lean slightly toward he's either telling the truth as he sees it or is completely oblivious to how dumb this was.
It wasn't a press conference. It was a controlled environment where he read a prepared statement that likely was written by a half-dozen people, then left without answering questions. When someone goes into a set-up like that, knowing that all he has to do is recite a prepared script, it can be far less stressful than standing there wondering what the dozens of media people are going to ask.
Sure, agreed with your correction. I just think it would be such an odd, risky choice to make that kind of a public statement directly accusing someone else of a very specific crime if you were lying. It's not like there's a lot of grey area left there. He could be either naive about the consequences or I guess a pathological liar, but those seem less likely to me than he's mostly just telling what he knows.
I mean, he’s likely reiterating the exact story he most recently told law enforcement. Say it once, twice or twenty times, he’s wed to the position.
Devil's advocate, I can think of $700M for doing so, more when you consider endorsements. Ohtani has billion dollar earning potential.
I'd add that we're about 7-10 days away from the blaming-the-media portion of the narrative
I thought I'd read that law enforcement hadn't contacted him to this point. Not sure if he's talked to investigators that matter yet. If not, this was his chance to start being more unsure and less specific, but he didn't take it. I had assumed he would.
I would argue the best way to lose that is probably to commit federal crimes by lying to investigators and making false accusations rather than a sports betting violation that probably would have resulted in just a fine. Which again is just what makes me think he really went out on a limb here.
I certainly think this whole thing is insanely strange, and it's completely unexplained how his associate had no wire transfer oversight whatsoever on massive, massive transfers. The original story change was also not a point in his favor. I just think his statement today was weirdly specific.
That's certainly one way to take what I said...but it would be the wrong way.
Please tell me when there is evidence that he made a single bet. Transferring money does not equate to making a bet. No prosecutor would take anyone to court over illegal betting if all they had were money transfers.
As for the stories...yes, it sounds like Ohtani is sticking to his original story and essentially saying the interpretor was full of shit. Sure would like more facts to emerge before saying someone is guilty before he's even charged. I know...crazy isn't it?
There’s a difference between “shady/illegal” and “Legitimate gambling establishment threatening to physically harm someone you’ve let run up a large gambling debt.” These companies are highly regulated and have all kinds of eyes on them in specifically this area, which is what separates them from the black market, and have the deck stacked in favor of them making massive amounts of money anyway. In reality, the incentives just don’t line up in a way that remotely approaches what you’re talking about, specifically because the players are so large.
Whether he bet doesn't matter much anymore, given there are worse things at play now (accusations of the theft of millions of dollars).
He's either telling the truth about Mizuhara, or he's lying in a way that might not hold up to scrutiny, in which case he's much worse off than if he had placed bets and admitted to them.
Please tell me when there is evidence that he never made a single bet.
The truth is ... we simply don't know
And we aren’t prosecutors or the cops (with the natural exception of Sparky, though he surely lacks jurisdiction in this case), so we’re gonna discuss it without needing to obtain evidence that meets the evidentiary standard to bring charges, much less obtain a conviction. I also don’t think anyone posting here who tries to dissect what we already know, or even speculate about what we don’t know to varying degrees, has the ability to affect Ohtani’s reputation one iota. It’s ok to post about what is one of the crazier sports stories in recent memory before any official actions have occurred.
Yes! That's what I've been saying. Yet many are already talking like he obviously made bets. Really? It's obvious?
Whatever...I have no horse in this race. It just amazes me that some people were extremely quick to say that because it was so much money that clearly Ohtani made the bets and Mizuhara was a fall guy. I'm pretty much just waiting for actual evidence to surface and willing to withhold judgement because what has come out so far is wholly unconvincing to me one way or the other.
This is also true. I certainly have never said that no one should post their opinions...but then the people that think this is a nothing story short of new facts emerging also belong in the thread too (not that anyone has said otherwise).
You’re conflating “evidence” with “definitive proof,” and destroying the discussion by doing so.
Could he get 3% of his payoff today with the other 97% deferred for 10 years when nobody's paying attention?
Ah that's fair criticism of the words I've been using. Turns out words are important!
As long as he doesn't have to pay CA state taxes despite benefitting from state-funded infrastructure, he's game
The one thing that sticks in my craw is whenever I do any sort of bank transaction of any kind, my phone goes off and I get an email. I'm no where near Ohtani's wealth but my common sense tells me somethings not right.
Not only that but many banks will call to confirm a large wire due to fraud protection, particularly if it’s a transaction that doesn’t fit the account’s normal activity. Additionally, many will place limits on online transfers that require special approval to increase. I occasionally have to transfer 6-8 digit wire amounts between large banks as part of my job and I always get a verbal confirmation call on the large ones.
It’s not easy to commit this kind of fraud against somebody who is paying attention or, more likely in Ohtani’s case, has others to pay attention for him. It’s not difficult for me to believe that a baseball nut like Ohtani isn’t tracking his finances like we do but, if he has even a remotely competent team around him, they would sniff this out very quickly.
Common sense is really what it comes down to. The interpreter gave a freaking interview to espn with the cockamamie “I am a bad gambler and my hero Shohei paid my millions of dollars in debt and made me promise I’d never do it again” story they cooked up and thought that would cover their bases. They showed them laughing together in the dugout after the flippin interview came out right? Then when peope start saying wtf yea right eye roll it change to I’ve been robbed! That bad gambler stole millions from me! But yet to date no police report has been filed? I mean come on people.
I think we all/most of us understand why Ohtani had his LAD contract set up the way it is. He's making (i read $65mil someplace) a year off his merch and endorsements so a big salary now is useless. Someone somewhere is telling him about finances and whoever is in charge (was it his translator???? C'mon....) knows their stuff but didn't tell him about these wire transfers???
The story will make a lot more sense when Shohei reveals that the person hired to run his finances is Manny Ramirez.
This is a common take from before Ohtani's statement today, but imho doesn't hold up anymore. Ippei was Shohei's main conduit for any information in English. The ESPN interview was given before the game, but wasn't published until after. It tracks that Ohtani may not have known anything until, as he said, something seemed off with Ippei's postgame speech to the team.
The widely reported (estimated) number from last year's endorsements was $50m. Until a few days ago I assumed it would be higher this year, but anyway -- you've mentioned his merchandise revenue a few times but I don't think players get a cut of their name-specific merchandise sales, do they? This may be outdated info but last I knew except for sales within a certain radius of a team's stadium (which go wholly to that team), the revenue is divided evenly across all 30 teams. Players get a cut of that, so sure, your overall point that he's making a lot in non-salary income stands. But if you are intending to say that revenue from sales of Ohtani jerseys accrues specifically to him, I don't think that's the case?
As for the rest -- really, you're just making wild speculations. Which is your right in this thread of course -- you're certainly not the only one -- but it's perfectly conceivable that he got good advice about the contract but still got robbed by Ippei. The two things don't have to be remotely related. Why would, for example, Nez Balelo who was likely heavily involved in the contract structuring, be looking at all at his financial activity? The things you're speculating about are all within the realm of possibility, but they are not what I would call logical conclusions.
So you think the biggest sports figure in Japan doesn’t have a gaggle of people working for him in some capacity who also speak English? You don’t supposed anyone else close to Ohtani would read that interview and go holy smokes I gotta call him and ask wtf he’s doing paying his interpreter’s gambling debts??? You think his interpreter thought he was the only person who could interpret his interview for him??
Nothing about any of this is "logical" up to this point. You use the word think often and conceivable. Why would.....isn't this what we are talking about? We're not investigators or flys on the wall. You and I....we live here....we "supposedly" understand some of the different thinking that goes on here. My comments were just saying that he has other income that is probably a lot more than his salary. I know nothing about either of these two people. One is very Americanized and one is not. I've had a few conversations with some locals from both sides of the track here and I'm not getting much from them. Where's the translator now is a biggie. I hope this turns out well for Mr. Ohtani as I don't want to call him Shobet.
No, after the interview was given but before it was published and before anyone knew about it, so the premise for a lot of the rest of your thought process is flawed.
There are other possible/plausible explanations for why things unfolded the way they did. And in fact if you take Shohei at his word today, they make sense. At the time the interview was given (and, again, before it became public), Ippei surely knew the gig was about to be up. Maybe giving the interview and later addressing the team was Ippei's way of trying to spin the narrative in his favor and he hoped to then convince Ohtani to go along with it later. Ippei's actions are really the only thing that don't make a ton of sense to me -- seemingly acting normal right up until the shit was about to hit the fan -- but then, if he's a desperate criminal who is feeling the heat, he may not have been totally rational about it. Or maybe he was rational and just felt he didn't have a lot of great choices. If you're basing your opinion on anything from the ESPN piece, you may have an unreliable narrator problem.
Does Ohtani have a gaggle of people working for him? I really don't know - he seems to be an intensely private person and there's maybe a handful of people who really know him well. One of his Samurai Japan WBC teammates reacted with surprise to the news of his marriage, saying, "I really thought he only cared about baseball." As @kazuneko said way upthread, Ippei was way, way more to him than just an interpreter. He was his best friend who was basically spent every waking moment with him, non-spouse division.
That much is true - as I said the reported #'s for last year were 30m in salary and 50m in endorsements. But I was mainly reacting to your line, "Someone somewhere is telling him about finances and whoever is in charge (was it his translator???? C'mon....) knows their stuff but didn't tell him about these wire transfers??? "
...when it's extremely unlikely that whoever structured the contract is also handling his personal finances. We're not investigators or flies on the wall but we can still be rational about the assertions we make or conclusions we draw.
Basically while I acknowledge that absolutely anything is still possible, I hashtag BelieveShohei and at this point I don't feel like there's any aspect that can't be explained by someone very, very close to him being a thief.
All I'm attempting to do in my recent posts is, like @changer591, push back against some of the posts that seem completely certain there's more to the story & that Shohei is complicit. It's possible, sure. But I don't know why anyone would be so certain at this stage.
All I'm attempting to do in my recent posts is, like @changer591, push back against some of the posts that seem completely certain there's more to the story & that Shohei is complicit. It's possible, sure. But I don't know why anyone would be so certain at this stage.
I don't know Jack about banking as I'm assuming some folks here do. I pay my bills at the local 7/11
I personally don't know any gamblers but in this day and age I'm guessing (This is my common sense now) that you've got to be on ur phone plenty. If you have your best bud with you all the time.....(and in all honesty....I don't know what a best friend is...I'm not that lucky in life yet) and he's always on his phone.....won't you maybe say.....even just once....."Hey dude....why you always on ur phone? You got something going on on the side?" This is just a guess.....like we're all doing here.
I mentioned this shortly after Ohtani issued his statement and really haven't seen any other discussion about it, so perhaps @Myt1 or any other legal types might want to weigh in. One of the obvious questions pertains to Mizuhara's access to Ohtani's finances, but what really struck me was the statement explaining the change in stories. Ohtani claimed that his spokeperson/people gave the original story of him wiring money on Mizuhara's behalf because Mizuhara lied to them. I can't for a moment fathom representing someone of Ohtani's status, being presented with a story of this magnitude and addressing anyone without A) verifying the story with Ohtani and B) consulting with him as to how he wants me to handle this moving forward.
Perhaps:
A. If the scammer had the access to steal $4.5 million then he may have had access to change the account settings.
B. Obtaining fuck you and then some money means and you literally don't care about even reading bank alerts.
Casinos, especially nice ones, have many many dining options. If one’s spouse had a credit card bill for millions of dollars from a casino they’d (correctly) be guessing it wasn’t from food. If it was $100 then it would pass the smell test but that wasn’t this.
I don’t know anyone who has ever paid a bookie for food. Any amount. You pay a bookie significant sums of money for one reason, period. I get that this isn’t “evidence” that he bet or especially that he bet on baseball but that is an awful analogy. Again, I keep getting the Barry Bonds flashbacks on this one with the defenses.
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Not specific to any posts above but just for general color -- here's an interview with a former Japanese interpreter who says he handled all kinds of duties and transactions beyond just translation:
https://x.com/mrjeffu/status/1772452554145726704?s=20
Text of tweets:
Is it hard to believe that Ippei Mizuhara had access to Shohei Ohtani's bank account? No. It's quite plausible, says Katsunori Kojima, a former interpreter for the Mets/Giants. He handled lots of financial transactions for players.
Kojima handled banking, credit card applications, taxes, and car payments for Japanese players who had American bank accounts (and he didn't have the years-long relationship with players that Mizuhara had with Ohtani).
Former MLB interpreter Kojima added that some foreign players divide their earnings into several American bank accounts, so allowing an interpreter or other employee free access to one account doesn't mean they're giving total access to their entire fortune.
https://x.com/mrjeffu/status/1772452554145726704?s=20
Text of tweets:
Is it hard to believe that Ippei Mizuhara had access to Shohei Ohtani's bank account? No. It's quite plausible, says Katsunori Kojima, a former interpreter for the Mets/Giants. He handled lots of financial transactions for players.
Kojima handled banking, credit card applications, taxes, and car payments for Japanese players who had American bank accounts (and he didn't have the years-long relationship with players that Mizuhara had with Ohtani).
Former MLB interpreter Kojima added that some foreign players divide their earnings into several American bank accounts, so allowing an interpreter or other employee free access to one account doesn't mean they're giving total access to their entire fortune.
If Shohei truly didn’t know about the betting, then Ippei must have convinced the bookie that he was placing bets on behalf of Shohei, right? How else would the bookie extend that kind of credit? And it tracks with the bookie telling people he had Shohei as a client. Ippei loses some bets, wires 500k from Shohei’s account to cover some losses. Bookie thinks he has a whale for a client. All good. The question is…where did winnings go? Ippei must have won some bets, right? Did it get wired to Shohei’s account? Or did Ippei get paid in cash? If so, where is that cash? Did it get deposited into Ippei’s account? Did he give it to Shohei? Find the proceeds from winnings and you have your real bettor!