{"id":70538,"date":"2024-04-13T17:45:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T21:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70538"},"modified":"2024-04-13T17:45:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T21:45:54","slug":"shohei-ohtani-interpreter-fraud-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/13\/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-fraud-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Know as Shohei Ohtani&#8217;s Former Interpreter Faces Fraud Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The former longtime interpreter for Dodgers star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-13_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shohei Ohtani<\/a> appeared in federal court on Friday, charged with felony bank fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ippei Mizuhara surrendered to law enforcement on Friday. He faces federal fraud charges for allegedly stealing more than $16 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers star. Mizuhara appeared in U.S. District Court and was released shortly after on a $25,000 signature bond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for the Department of Justice\u2019s investigation,\u201d Ohtani told the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/dodgers\/story\/2024-04-12\/shohei-ohtani-grateful-for-investigation-ex-interpreter\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on Friday. \u201cFor me personally, this marks a break from this, and I\u2019d like to focus on baseball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers during the team\u2019s season opener in the first-ever Seoul Series in South Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ippei Mizuhara appeared in court today with shackles around his ankles, per <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SamBlum3?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SamBlum3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s released on a $25k bond with conditions that include: cannot leave Central District of CA without permission, cannot contact Shohei Ohtani and a mandatory gamblers addiction program <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Br8hFC8xI6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Br8hFC8xI6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JomboyMedia\/status\/1778898262767939858?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 12, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Shohei Ohtani&#8217;s Former Interpreter Faces Federal Charges in Alleged Gambling Scandal<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lawyers for Ohtani accused Mizuhara of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/20\/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-theft\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">stealing funds from the Dodgers star<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to place bets with an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara had been Ohtani\u2019s interpreter since the two-way star came to America in 2018. He was fired by the Dodgers in March after Ohtani\u2019s legal team accused the 39-year-old of a \u201cmassive theft\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">News broke of the gambling scandal after Ohtani\u2019s name surfaced in a Los Angeles Times investigation of an alleged illegal bookmaker. Representatives for Ohtani looked into the matter and discovered the alleged \u201cmassive theft\u201d by Mizuhara to place bets. At least $4.5 million in wire transfers were sent from Ohtani\u2019s bank account to a Southern California bookmaking operation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initially, a spokesperson for Ohtani told ESPN that he transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara\u2019s gambling debt. His team arranged for Mizuhara to speak with ESPN, which he reportedly did, laying out his account in great detail. However, Ohtani\u2019s team later disavowed Mizuhara\u2019s account before the interview was published and lawyers for Ohtani instead released a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,&#8221; read the statement from Berk Brettler LLP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Five days after Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/25\/ohtani-addresses-gambling-scandal\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ohtani read a statement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> addressing the alleged gambling scandal. He remained steadfast in his denials about gambling and said that he first learned about Mizuhara\u2019s gambling in a meeting after the first game in Korea. He said that he was unaware Mizuhara was in debt until the two shared a one-on-one conversation later that night. Ohtani claimed Mizuhara admitted that he was \u201csending money,\u201d using Ohtani\u2019s account, \u201cto the bookmaker.\u201d That was when Ohtani contacted his representatives.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Ippei Mizuhara Investigated and Charged in Alleged &#8220;Massive Theft&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The federal investigation into Mizuhara\u2019s alleged theft is being conducted by the Los Angeles offices of IRS Criminal Investigations and the main investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. A criminal complaint filed Thursday detailed the alleged scheme through evidence that included text messages, financial records, and recordings of phone calls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Major League Baseball opened its own investigation into the alleged gambling scandal shortly after the controversy surfaced. &#8220;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,&#8221; MLB said in a statement on Thursday in response to the charges filed against Mizuhara.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mizuhara has been charged with one count of felony bank fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Mizuhara is scheduled to be arraigned on May 9.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former longtime interpreter for Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani appeared in federal court on Friday, charged with felony bank fraud. Ippei Mizuhara surrendered to law enforcement on Friday. He faces federal fraud charges for allegedly stealing more than $16 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers star. Mizuhara appeared in U.S. District Court and was released [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":70550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1071],"tags":[2178],"class_list":["post-70538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dodgers","category-mlb","tag-shohei-ohtani"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}