May 8 (UPI) — Ippei Mizuhara, former translator for Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani, has agreed to plead guilty to stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani to pay for his gambling debts.
“The extent of this defendant’s deception and theft is massive,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement Wednesday. “He took advantage of his position of trust to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and fuel a dangerous gambling habit.”
Mizuhara, 39, agreed to plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of filing a false tax return and faces up to 33 years in federal prison, NBC News, ABC News and Fox11 reported.
Mizuhara is a Newport Beach, Calif., resident who served as Ohtani’s interpreter while he was a star pitcher and hitter for the Los Angeles Angels MLB team from 2018 through 2023 and during Ohtani’s first year with the Los Angeles Dodgers this year.
The baseball clubs paid Mizuhara for acting as Ohtani’s translator, but the MLB star also paid Mizuhara separately for driving him to meetings and while tending to activities outside of baseball.
Those outside activities included a 2018 trip to a bank in Phoenix, where Estrada said Mizuhara translated bank account and login information for Ohtani.
Mizuhara in September 2021 started laying bets with an illegal bookmaker in California, where sports betting is illegal. Estrada said he quickly became indebted to the bookmaker.
As his gambling debts mounted, Mizuhara “orchestrated a scheme to deceive and cheat the bank to fraudulently obtain money from the account,” Estrada said.
From November 2021 to March 2024, Estrada said Mizuhara used Ohtani’s login information to access the Phoenix bank account and change its security protocols without Ohtani’s knowledge.
The changed information meant a bank employee would call Mizuhara instead of Ohtani when verifying wire transfers from Ohtani’s account to the bookmaker and the bookmaker’s associates to pay gambling debts.
Estrada said Mizuhara also called the bank and impersonated Ohtani on 24 occasions.
During one occasion, Estrada said, Mizuhara transferred $500,000 from Ohtani’s account to one of the bookmaker’s associates. He also used Ohtani’s banking information to pay for a $60,000 dental bill and deposited a check drawn from a separate bank in the same amount into his personal bank account.
Estrada also said Mizuhara used Ohtani’s banking information to buy $325,000 worth of baseball bards from online resellers from January through March and intended to resell them for his own benefit.
Mizuhara also refused to provide Ohtani’s banking information to the baseball player’s sports agent and financial advisers, saying Ohtani didn’t want anyone to access the account.
Estrada said Mizuhara had stolen more than $16.98 million from Ohtani by that point and was hiding the transactions.
Mizuhara also allegedly falsely filed a 2022 federal tax return claiming $136,865 in income without reporting an additional $4.1 million obtained through his scheme to defraud Ohtani.
Estrada said Mizuhara owes $1.15 million in unpaid federal taxes, plus penalties and interest, for the 2022 tax year.
Mizuhara’s plea agreement was filed Wednesday. He has an arraignment hearing scheduled Tuesday.
