Major League Baseball announced Thursday that it would wait until the conclusion of the federal government’s case against Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, before deciding if a further investigation into Ohtani was necessary.
The league’s full statement read:
“We are aware of the charges filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office against Mr. Mizuhara for bank fraud after a thorough federal investigation. According to that investigation, Ohtani is considered a victim of fraud and there is no evidence that he authorized betting with an illegal bookmaker. Further, the investigation did not find any betting on baseball by Mr. Mizuhara. Given the information disclosed today, and other information we have already collected, we will wait until resolution of the criminal proceeding to determine whether further investigation is warranted.”
Federal authorities said in an affidavit filed Thursday that Mizuhara stole more than $16 million from Ohtani over a two-year period to cover various gambling debts. He is now potentially facing up to 30 years in prison.
Investigators found no evidence that Ohtani was aware of Mizuhara’s gambling issues, and Ohtani told authorities he never authorized wire transfers to illegal bookies.
“I want to emphasize this point: Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada told reporters. “… 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.”
Ohtani said that he never granted Mizuhara access to his accounts. The former interpreter reportedly hid his activity by allegedly telling Ohtani’s financial advisers and accountants—none of whom spoke Japanese—that the baseball star wouldn’t allow them direct access to his accounts.
He also allegedly faked Ohtani’s identity on phone calls with bank employees to authorize transfers, and both the phone number and email address on Ohtani’s accounts were changed to ones tied to Mizuhara in 2021.
Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times reported Wednesday that “authorities think they have evidence that Mizuhara was able to change the settings on Ohtani’s bank account so Ohtani would not receive alerts and confirmations about transactions.”
However, Estrada said Mizuhara didn’t transfer any of his gambling winnings back into Ohtani’s account, according to CNN’s Holly Yan and Cindy Von Quednow. Instead, he put them in his own personal account.
Ohtani, 29, is arguably the biggest star in the sport as both an elite starting pitcher and slugger, although he won’t pitch this season due to an injured right elbow. A betting scandal involving MLB’s most marketable star would have rocked baseball and the sporting world at large, though it appears that Ohtani was nothing more than the victim of massive fraud.
