Federal Prosecutors Charge Ippei Mizuhara With Stealing $16 Million from Shohei Ohtani
The Talented Mr. Ippei faces up to 30 years in prison for bank fraud.
In a downtown Los Angeles courtroom today, federal law enforcement officials announced that they were charging Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter and manager, Ippei Mizuhara, with stealing $16 million from the superstar baseball player to pay debts to an alleged illegal sports bookmaker.
It marked the latest bombshell in a stunning saga that threatened to drag the face of Major League Baseball into a sports betting scandal.
Federal investigators said emphatically today that Ohtani is a victim of massive fraud, and that he had no idea Mizuhara was stealing from him to gamble. They also said there was no evidence that Ohtani himself ever bet on sports, and no evidence Mizuhara bet on baseball.
In a 37-page complaint, authorities laid out truly jaw-dropping details about how they believe Mizuhara was able to allegedly steal so much money from Ohtani without him noticing. You can read the entire thing here for yourself.
But I will summarize the details here: