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Federal bank fraud charges were announced Thursday against Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, who is accused of stealing millions from the baseball star’s account to support a “voracious appetite” for gambling. Prosecutors discussed the charges against Ippei Mizuhara, 39, at a news conference in Los Angeles, claiming that Mizuhara used $16 million stolen from Ohtani’s account to pay off significant illegal gambling debts. Prosecutors said there is no evidence Ohtani authorized the transfers from his account and characterized the baseball superstar as a victim in the case. In a text message to a bookmaker, Mizuhara admitted that he was stealing the money from Ohtani’s account, prosecutors said. “Mr. Mizuhara stole this money largely to finance his voracious appetite for illegal sports betting,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. Mizuhara accompanied Ohtani to a bank branch in Arizona when they opened the account in 2018, translating for Ohtani to set up the account. Ohtani’s salary was deposited into the account, prosecutors said, and he never gave Mizuhara control of the account or any of his other financial accounts, according to the affidavit. “Mizuhara allegedly told Ohtani’s U.S.-based financial professionals, none of whom spoke Japanese, that Ohtani denied them access to the account,” the Department of Justice said in a statement. Mizuhara began gambling with an illegal sportsbook in 2021, according to prosecutors. Months later, he started losing “substantial” amounts of money and, at about the same time, contact information on Ohtani’s bank account was changed to link it to Mizuhara’s phone number and an anonymous email, prosecutors said. “Mizuhara allegedly also telephoned the bank and falsely identified himself as Ohtani to trick bank employees into authorizing wire transfers from Ohtani’s bank account to associates of the illegal gambling operation,” the DOJ’s statement continued. “From January 2024 to March 2024, he also allegedly used this same account to purchase via eBay and Whatnot approximately 1,000 baseball cards – at a cost of approximately $325,000 – and had them mailed to Mizuhara under an alias, ‘Jay Min,’ and mailed to the clubhouse for Ohtani’s current MLB team.” Ohtani reportedly has been assisting authorities with the investigation. The New York Times reports that the Mizuhara is negotiating a plea deal. The broke in mid-March after Mizuhara, Ohtani’s close friend and interpreter, was fired for an alleged theft from Ohtani’s bank accounts to cover illegal gambling losses. Those gambling debts were to an illegal bookmaker in Orange County who was under IRS investigation. The reports indicated at least $4.5 million was transmitted from Ohtani’s bank account to the California bookie. Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. But the following day, ESPN said Mizuhara dramatically changed his story, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers. Meanwhile, authorities believe they have evidence that Mizuhara was able to change the settings on Ohtani’s bank account so that he wouldn’t receive notifications about transactions, according to the NYTimes. Ohtani and his attorneys have maintained that Mizuhara was completely unaware of the “massive theft” until the news came to light last month when the Dodgers were opening the season in against the . Major League Baseball launched its own investigation concurrent to the federal one by the IRS. Ohtani has been playing throughout the investigation.
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