Shohei Ohtani’s longtime interpreter and pal, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired on Wednesday after being accused of stealing “at the very least $4.5 million” from the Los Angeles Dodgers star. Nonetheless, a now-scrapped ESPN story has created extra questions than solutions.
In keeping with ESPN’s Tisha Thompson, Mizuhara defined in a prolonged interview that after he’d collected a hefty playing debt, Ohtani made wire transfers to repay a bookmaker, who’s now below federal investigation. Nonetheless, a spokesman denied the feedback shortly earlier than an announcement from Ohtani’s legal professionals emerged claiming he’d been the sufferer of “huge theft.”
“After Ohtani agreed to pay the money owed, Mizuhara stated on Tuesday, Ohtani logged onto his personal laptop and despatched the wire transfers below Mizuhara’s supervision in installments over a number of months final yr,” Thompson wrote.
On Wednesday, Mizuhara immediately modified his story, telling ESPN that Ohtani hadn’t transferred cash to repay his playing money owed and that he had “no information” of them.
ESPN would later confirm two wire transfers of $500,000 every made by Ohtani. Each had “mortgage” as the outline and have been paid to bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, who’s at present below federal investigation tied to an alleged unlawful playing operation.
Authorities raided Bowyer’s property in October, seizing money, on line casino chips, banking paperwork, computer systems and different potential proof. In the meantime, the U.S. lawyer’s workplace investigating the case is similar one which uncovered an unlawful sports activities betting ring involving former minor league baseball participant Wayne Nix. Nix is going through as much as eight years in jail after pleading responsible to conspiracy to function an unlawful playing enterprise, which took in “hundreds of thousands of {dollars}” of bets via an off-shore web site.
MLB reportedly wasn’t conscious of the incident involving Ohtani and Mizuhara till Wednesday. Nonetheless, a number of questions stay unanswered, together with how he gained entry to Ohtani’s funds and the way the star did not notice two huge transfers.
Authorities haven’t contacted the league, Ohtani, or Mizuhara in regards to the matter, per ESPN. Regardless, it is a greater than curious scenario involving arguably the league’s largest star, and you’ll consider this is not the final we’ll hear about it.
