Ippei Mizuhara, 39, made a series of unauthorized transfers from Ohtani’s checking account between November 2021 and January 2024, the Justice Department said.
US federal prosecutor Martin Estrada told a press conference there was no evidence to suggest Ohtani was aware of or involved in Mizuhara’s illegal gambling activity.
“I want to emphasise this point: Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case,” Estrada said.
Ohtani, the biggest star in baseball, joined the Dodgers last December in a record-breaking $700 million deal.
The 29-year-old Ohtani told reporters last month that he has never bet on baseball and had not known previously about Mizuhara’s gambling problems. Ohtani has not said in public how so much money could go missing from his account without his knowledge.
According to the Justice Department, Mizuhara transferred more than $16 million from Ohtani’s bank account “to pay off his own substantial gambling debts incurred with an illegal bookmaking operation.”
It said Mizuhara in 2018 accompanied Ohtani, who did not speak any English at the time, to a bank branch in Arizona to open an account.
“Ohtani’s salary from playing professional baseball was deposited into this account and he never gave Mizuhara control of this or any of his other financial accounts,” according to an affidavit in the case.
“Mizuhara allegedly told Ohtani’s US-based financial professionals, none of whom spoke Japanese, that Ohtani denied them access to the account,” the department added.
Estrada said that while employed as Ohtani’s interpreter, Mizuhara had in fact operated as the baseball star’s “de facto manager.”
– ‘Used and abused’ trust –
“Due to the position of trust he occupied with Mr. Ohtani, Mr. Mizuhara had unique access to Mr. Ohtani’s finances,” Estrada said.
“He used and abused that position of trust in order to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and to feed his insatiable appetite for sports betting,” Estrada said, adding that Mizuhara “committed fraud on a massive scale.”
The…
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