MLB Ohtani’s former translator Mizuhara surrenders to federal officials in LA
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, surrendered to federal authorities Friday on charges that he stole more than $16 million from the Dodgers superstar to cover debts with an illegal bookmaker.
Prosecutors on Thursday charged Mizuhara with bank fraud, alleging the 39-year-old took advantage of his closeness with Ohtani to feed a spiraling gambling habit, accumulating $40 million in losses across more than 19,000 bets.
Authorities detailed in a 36-page criminal complaint how Mizuhara won some $142 million through illegal sports betting but lost about
$183 million, placing an average of nearly 25 bets per day. As his losses mounted over about two years, prosecutors said, Mizuhara began making wire transfers from the bank account where Ohtani’s baseball salary was deposited to pay off his debts with an illegal bookmaking operation in Orange County.
Mizuhara is scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court Friday afternoon in Los Angeles. The Justice Department has said Mizuhara will not be asked to enter a plea and will likely be ordered released on bond.
Mizuhara faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said at a news conference Thursday that Ohtani was an unwitting victim, not an accomplice, in Mizuhara’s gambling spree. Ohtani fully cooperated with a federal investigation and provided access to his digital devices and personal information, Estrada said.
“Our investigation has revealed that due to the position of trust he occupied with Mr. Ohtani, Mr. Mizuhara had unique access to
Mr. Ohtani’s finances,” Estrada said. “Mr. Mizuhara used and abused that position of trust in order to plunder Mr. Ohtani’s bank account … to feed his insatiable appetite for illegal sports betting.”
The two met in 2013, when Ohtani was an 18-year-old rookie for the Nippon-ham Fighters in Hokkaido, and Mizuhara was a translator for American players. When Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, Mizuhara came too.
Mizuhara, who was born in Japan but attended middle and high school in L.A. County, served as Ohtani’s body man and de facto manager in Southern California, helping the star navigate an unfamiliar language and country.
Mizuhara had taken an unusual path to a job with Major League Baseball. After graduating from Diamond Bar
High School in 2003, he tried his hand at several careers, including working at a sushi restaurant and for a Japanese company that imported and distributed sake. It had been widely reported, including in a biography provided by the Angels, that Mizuhara graduated from UC Riverside in 2007, but the school said there were no records of a student by that name.
After Ohtani signed with the Angels in
2018, Mizuhara became a constant presence in his life, translating conversations and interviews, helping to manage his schedule and corresponding with his parents, friends and business associates in Japan. Whenever Ohtani did well on the field, Mizuhara told a reporter in 2018, “I usually get 1520 texts.”