He was for years the interpreter, best friend and confidant of Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese American baseball star, who speaks no English and is averse to scandals. During all this time, according to prosecutors, Ippei Mizuhara stole about $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player to survive onerous million-dollar debts accumulated by illegal sports betting on other sports. Mizhuhara, born in Konai, Japan and raised in California, appeared in court for the first time this Tuesday, where he is accused of bank fraud and tax evasion. He has decided to collaborate with justice to soften his sentence.
Mizuhara agreed last week to cooperate with federal authorities and plead guilty. This Tuesday morning, the 39-year-old interpreter appeared before the judge. He pleaded not guilty, a requirement for his case to move forward and allow the Prosecutor’s Office to draft the court agreement. If he had not agreed with prosecutors, Mizuhara faced a maximum sentence of 33 years in prison.
Prosecutors have called the fraud committed by Mizuhara, who illegally transferred money from Ohtani’s bank accounts without Ohtani’s knowledge or permission, “massive.” “He benefited from a relationship of trust to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and feed a dangerous gambling addiction,” Martin Estrada, one of the prosecutors in the case, said last week. Ohtani signed a ten-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles team in December.
Prosecutors have dismissed all suspicion about Ohtani, ensuring that he was not part of the plot and that he is the victim of the case. The player, in the United States since 2017, has caused a stir because he plays two positions. In addition to being a pitcher, he is a powerful offensive machine. In the current season he is tied with three other players in the league with 12 home runs. In April he reached 175 home runsin the MLB, tying the Japanese record holder, Hideki Matsui.
Mizuhara, on the other hand, grew up in Diamond Bar, a city east of Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of California, Riverside in 2007. In 2012 he began translating for Japanese athletes in the major leagues. His first client was Yankees pitcher Hideki Okajima. He later moved to Japan to serve as an interpreter for the English-speaking Nippon-ham Fighters.
Mizuhara’s relationship with Ohtani was more than close. Her work went beyond translating into Japanese everything that was happening around the star, a cryptic character who barely offers press conferences and about whom little is known about her personal life. Mizuhara was the athlete’s link with his sports agents and his financial advisors, who did not speak the Japanese language. She was also his driver. She took him to meetings with sponsors and non-baseball activities.
The tasks were not limited to life outside the diamond. The interpreter was an employee of the Angels, Ohtani’s first team, between 2017 and 2023, and then the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was common to see him next to the pitcher at all times within the dugout, The bench. His salary with the Angels was approximately $85,000. In interviews, the translator often said that he saw Shohei more than his own wife, whom he married in 2018 and with whom he lives in Tokyo when there is no league in the United States.
In March 2018, Mizuhara accompanied Ohtani to open the bank account in which he would receive his salary as an athlete. Prosecutors claim that at that bank in Phoenix (Arizona), Mizuhara heard from the bank employee the access codes to the account from which he would withdraw the money.
Three years later, in 2021, Mizuhara began placing bets on several sports, none of them baseball (the league prohibits it). He made them through Mathew Bowyer, a man he met that same year at a poker game in San Diego. The translator has admitted to the authorities and to ESPN, the media that publicized the scandal along with Los Angeles Times, who did not know that Bowyer’s network was illegal, since California has not legalized sports gambling even though 40 entities have done so. By the end of 2022, Mizuhara’s debts amounted to $1 million. A few months later, the bill ballooned to $4 million.
Authorities say Mizuhara earned a total of $142 million from sports betting over several years. But the losses were much higher: around $183 million, a net loss of $41 million. When he won, the translator deposited the money into his personal account, never into Ohtani’s.
The translator assured ESPN that, pressured by debts and fearful for his safety, he went to Ohtani to ask for help. Mizuhara claims that the player, whom he considers “his brother,” agreed to help him, although he became very upset with him. According to him, together they made several bank transfers of $500,000 to cover $4.5 million last October. Each of these was labeled as a “loan” to the bank.
The authorities have another version. According to prosecutors, between 2021 and March of this year, Mizuhara used Ohtani’s password to access his bank account, where he changed the security settings to make calls and emails from the bank go to him and not the player. every time a transfer had to be recognized. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the interpreter posed as the athlete at least 24 times before the bank.
Last September, Mizuhara asked Ohtani for help paying off a $60,000 debt for dental work. The player agreed to lend them to her and wrote his friend a check for the amount from another bank account. When the translator went to his dentist, however, he provided her with the number of the debit card he had opened with the pitcher in Arizona in 2018. He then deposited the check received for $60,000 into her personal account. he.
The court agreement requires Mizuhara to pay back the money he stole from his friend, a figure that amounts to $17 million. In addition, the accused must pay the treasury a debt of one million dollars. In 2022 he lied to the tax authorities stating that he had earned $136,000, an amount that left out four million that he received illicitly that year by stealing from someone who had been his best friend.
You can follow Morning Express Deportes inFacebook andxor sign up here to receiveour weekly newsletter.
.
.
_
