No. 2024.03.20 · Modern Era
Mizuhara's Debts
During the Seoul Series, the Dodgers fired Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani's interpreter. Mizuhara had stolen about $17 million from Ohtani's account to pay illegal gambling debts. He pleaded guilty. Prosecutors cleared Ohtani.
Ippei Mizuhara (with Shohei Ohtani) at Angel Stadium, June 8, 2019. Taken years before the scandal, not the moment.
Moto "Club4AG" Miwa from USA / CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
March 20, 2024, during the season-opening series in Seoul. The Dodgers fired Ippei Mizuhara, who had been Shohei Ohtani's interpreter for years. What came out in the days around the firing was that Mizuhara had taken roughly $17 million from Ohtani's bank account to cover debts from illegal sports betting.
He pleaded guilty on June 4, 2024, to bank fraud and filing a false tax return. On February 6, 2025, he was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. Federal prosecutors said Ohtani had not been involved. For about a week the bets were treated as a question about Ohtani. The charging documents and the plea put them on Mizuhara.
The entry is the theft and the gambling that the theft was for. The catalog's subject is the person who had the debts, the access, and the guilty plea.
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