The whole story of the shocking scandal was finally revealed.
U.S. federal prosecutors have indicted Ifei Mizuhara, who has been a partner for more than a decade since his time with the Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japanese baseball while interpreting Shohei Ohtani (LA Dodgers).
The U.S. federal prosecutor announced on the 12th (Korea Standard Time) that he had indicted Mizuhara on bank fraud charges. “Federal investigations have found that Mizuhara illegally transferred $16 million (about 21.9 billion won) from Ohtani’s bank account to pay off his sports gambling debt,” said Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. “Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani and made thousands of bets while talking with bank officials and deposited the jackpot in the bank account that Mizuhara controlled.”
According to an affidavit filed in the federal prosecution’s complaint, Mizuhara transferred more than $16 million from Ohtani’s account without permission between November 2021 and January 2024. “I want to emphasize this point. Ohtani is considered a victim of the incident. There is no evidence that Ohtani approved a transfer of over $16 million from his account to an illegal horseman,” he said. “Mizuhara served as Ohtani’s de facto manager, helping open Ohtani’s bank account, and using and abusing his trust relationship to loot Ohtani’s account.” Ohtani reiterated that he had nothing to do with the incident and was a victim. Mizuhara transferred more than 4.5 million dollars, which was originally known.
He added that there is no evidence that Ohtani was aware of Mizuhara’s actions, and that he fully cooperated with the investigation. Mizuhara’s maximum sentence for bank fraud is 30 years in prison, but the sentence per case may be shorter under federal sentencing guidelines.
On March 21, allegations of illegal gambling were made public when the Dodgers fired Mizuhara ahead of the official opening game of the Major League Seoul Series at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. While Matthew Boyer, a bookmaker who ran an illegal sports gambling company, was under investigation by the federal government, it was revealed that Mizuhara owed a large amount of money to Boyer’s company. As “ESPN” covered the investigation process, it was revealed that Mizuhara transferred about $4.5 million from Ohtani’s account.
“ESPN” also had an exclusive interview with Mizuhara for about 90 minutes. Mizuhara said at the meeting, “I explained my situation to Otani. Otani was not in a good mood, but he offered to help me to prevent this from happening again. I said I had to make a remittance to pay off my debt, and Otani didn’t even ask if it was illegal or not.” However, shortly before ESPN published the story, Otani’s lawyers refuted that Mizuhara had stolen Ohtani’s money and that Ohtani was a victim of massive theft. Mizuhara then reversed his stance, saying, “Ohtani was not aware of the gambling debt and did not transfer the money.” Mizuhara said that Ohtani was never involved in gambling, 유흥알바 drawing a line on Ohtani’s involvement.
However, during Mizuhara’s change of words, Ohtani was suspected of being directly involved in illegal gambling, and doubts could not be avoided. How could he not have known that a large amount of money had been withdrawn from his account.