LOS ANGELES (CN) — The former translator for Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani faces charges of stealing more than $16 million from the Japanese baseball star to pay his gambling debts to illegal sports bookmakers.
Ippei Mizuhara had unique access to Ohtani's bank account, which he helped set up shortly after Ohtani first came to the U.S. in 2018, U.S. attorney Martin Estrada said Thursday at a press conference in downtown LA.
"Mr. Mizuhara used and abused that position of trust in order to plunder Mr. Ohtani's bank account to the tune of over $16 million," Estrada said. "And Mr. Mizuhara did all this to feed his insatiable appetite for illegal sports betting."
Mizuhara, 39, faces charges of bank fraud and faces a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if convicted. Michael Freedman, his attorney, declined to comment.
The translator started placing sports bets with a group of bookmakers linked to an illegal gambling operation in 2021, the U.S. attorney said, and over time the bets became both larger and more frequent, causing him to lose a considerable amount of money.
"The bets do not appear to be made on the sport of baseball," Estrada said.
Mizuhara accessed Ohtani's bank account online and impersonated Ohtani on phone calls with bank employees, giving them biographical information of the baseball player, to convince them to approve the large wire transfers to the bookmakers, according to the federal prosecutor.
"I want to emphasize this point — Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case," Estrada said. "There's no evidence to indicate that Mr. Ohtani authorized the over $16 million in transfers from his account to the bookmakers."
In the criminal complaint filed Thursday, prosecutors cite a text message by Mizuhara to one of the bookmakers last month when news of the theft had broken, in which he said: “Technically I did steal from him. It’s all over for me.”
Ohtani, 29, who is both a star pitcher and slugger, joined the LA Dodgers last year when he signed what is considered the biggest contract in professional sports, paying him $700 million for 10 years. The contract has an unusual structure in that the bulk of the salary payments won't start until 2034, when the agreement is to end.
The criminal case against the translator stems from an ongoing investigation into illegal sports betting, Estrada said.
Former Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig has previously been accused of placing illegal sports bets with a Southern California gambling group that involved several former baseball players.
According to Puig's since-withdrawn plea agreement, he was questioned by Homeland Security investigators in 2022 and lied about discussing gambling with an unidentified agent for the betting operation. The truth, according to the government, is that Puig and this agent had communicated hundreds of times over the phone and through text messages about betting on games.
The case against Puig stems from a Homeland Security and IRS investigation into an online sports gambling business called Sand Island Sports. Wayne Nix, a former minor league baseball player in Southern California, ran the illegal bookmaking business for current and former professional athletes to place bets on sporting events.
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