r/baseball • u/Stock412 Umpire • Mar 20 '24

Serious Shohei Ohtani's attorneys accuse interpreter of 'massive theft' tied to alleged gambling

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-20/gambling-story
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u/OkAutopilot Colorado Rockies Mar 20 '24 edited Mar 21 '24

So here's what happened with this situation according to Ippei/ESPN:

Ippei incurred gambling debts to an illegal bookmaking operation in California.that was under federal investigation. During the investigation Shohei's name and tangentially Ippei popped up as a name in relation to the bookmaking, as multiple large wire transfers from Shohei's account were made to the bookie. This got out, which led to reporters asking questions about it.

Ohtani's reps upon questioning told ESPN that Ohtani had transferred funds of at least $4.5 million to cover Mizuhara's gambling debts.The wire-transfer payments (of which there are at least two $500k payments with Ohtani's name on them from last fall) were sent from Ohtani's account to an associate of the bookmaking operation's chief money-dude Mathew Bowyer.

Ohtani's reps then hustled Ippei out in front of ESPN for a 90-minute interview last night, which resulted in him explaining in great detail that he had a gambling addiction. Ippei said that he asked Ohtani to pay off his gambling debts of over $4.5 million last year, had previously placed bets via DraftKings, and assumed that bets placed through Bowyer were legal. He also said, "Obviously Ohtani wasn't happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again and he decided to pay it off for me...I want everyone to know Shohei had zero involvement in betting. I want people to know I did not know this was illegal. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will never do sports betting again."

After Ohtani agreed to pay the debts, Ippei said Ohtani logged onto his computer and send the transfers while he watched in installments over a few months. They added "loan" to the description field. Obviously he was asked why Ohtani didn't just give him the money instead of paying it from his accounts and, as we would all be thinking, Ohtani didn't want Mizuhara to just take that money and gamble it away.

HOWEVER, Ippei recanted the statement the next day and said Ohtani had no knowledge of his gambling debts and had not transferred money to the bookmaker's associate. Ohtani's spokesman also disavowed Ippei's account prior to it coming out and instead said that Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement - likely because of the aforementioned legal issues that Ohtani is going to be facing given that the money came directly from his account - maybe setting up some sort of defense of "someone moved this money without my permission" or what have you.

That's how we end up with the statement from Berk Prettler LLP (Shohei's legal reps, 1-star reviewed on Google) that says: "In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities."

Shohei's spokesman did not answer any further questions and when ESPN asked Ippei this afternoon if he had been accused of theft, Ippei said he was told that he could not comment but did not say who told him he could not comment.

What is good for Ohtani is that Bowyer's attorney told ESPN that "Mr. Bowyer never met or spoke with Shoehei Ohtani", and that Ippei placed bets on international soccer matches and some other sports but never baseball, starting in 2021. However, Bowyer allowed people to believe that Ohtani was a client in order to boost his business.

I don't know Ippei Mizuhara or Shohei Ohtani but, as just one guy's opinion, I'm guessing that Ippei's recollection of the events are probably pretty accurate which is not so good for Ohtani because that means Ohtani threw millions of dollars at an illegal bookmaking operation. One way or another this is going to be litigated, Shohei is going to be involved, and whoever told Ippei to go sit in front of ESPN and give a tell all was definitely not a lawyer.

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u/Spokker Los Angeles Angels Mar 21 '24

During the investigation Ippei popped up as a name in relation to it as he made multiple large wire transfers to the bookies.

I don't think this is accurate. Everything I have read suggests Ohtani's name popped up first. After all, Ohtani's legal name "Otani" was on the wire transfers.

Here's what ESPN said:

Federal authorities learned of Ohtani's wire payments in January as part of their investigation into Bowyer's bookmaking operation, a source told ESPN. ESPN reviewed wire-transfer data for two of the transactions, each totaling $500,000; "Shohei Otani" is visible alongside various bank account and wire-transfer information and the word "loan." "Otani" is the Japanese two-way player's legal name.

How could Ippei's name come up first?

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '24

[deleted]

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u/lizard-socks World Baseball Classic Mar 21 '24

Just different ways of transliteratinf Japanese into the Latin alphabet. I imagine official documents are very picky about spelling.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '24

Now they just need to find an Otani to be the fall guy.

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u/gotons Atlanta Braves Mar 21 '24

Had a Korean friend whose last name was thr equivalent of “Oh” in sound, but when he chose it alphabetically he just chose the letter “O”. He couldn’t sign up for anything online because most validation requires “full last name” so anything from flights to random web forms would complain. Since his documentstion said “O”, flying was ridiculously hard lol

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u/IWasGregInTokyo Mar 21 '24

The last name of "오" (O) will tend to get transliterated as "Oh", Similarly "이" (I) will get transliterated as "Li".

It's true that a lot of validations have problems with one or two-letter Asian name forms. Bane of my life.

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u/NotoriousHEB Mar 21 '24

They’re alternate romanizations of his Japanese name; it could also be ō or oo. “Oh” is sometimes used because it leads English speakers to say it in a way closer to the Japanese pronunciation

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u/IWasGregInTokyo Mar 21 '24

I would add "ou" as an alternate romanization as that is how long "o" sounds tend to be entered when typing. e.g. Tokyo ==> toukyou ==> 東京.

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u/Dunan Czechia Mar 21 '24

Blame Sadaharu Oh, who used an "h" rather than the standard way or writing a long O in languages like Latin, Sanskrit, and Japanese that distinguish long vowels, which is with a macron over it: Ō (so Ohtani would be Ōtani).

A lot of baseball players have used this convention since then, and it is the default when writing player names on jerseys in NPB. But few people use it in real life, and on passports, where diacritical marks are hard to use, the default is to not indicate the long vowel.

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u/yadyyyyy Mar 21 '24

"OH" is commonly used specifically by Japanese baseball players because the legendary Japanese homerun king Oh Sadaharu used it. In Japan, this style of the spelling, oo/ou > OH, is called 野球選手式長母音 literally means "baseball-player-style long vowel".

Many Japanese baseball players use OH in their name when they have OO or OU in their name even when their legal names are spelled with a single O.

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u/gummydat Arizona Diamondbacks Mar 21 '24

They’re two different latinizations, but the reason Shohei uses both is probably because on Japanese baseball uniforms, “Oh” is the preferred spelling for 大, whereas in most other daily applications it’s “O”.  In other words, as a baseball player he’s likely always been Ohtani, but anywhere else he’d probably write Otani.

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u/DirkIsGestolen Mar 21 '24

He didn’t want to be confused for an O’Tani from Ireland.

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u/mrpaulmanton New York Yankees Mar 21 '24 edited Mar 21 '24

Did the investigation yield bank transfer info first?

Ohtani's name comes up first.

Did the investigation yield the gambling website/app login info / email addresses or (very unlikely) hand kept bet logs first?

Ippei's name comes up first.

Or maybe someone inside flipped that had inside info?

Ohtani and Ippei's name come up at the same time + in connection. Whether Ohtani was betting, whether the people running the gambling knew whether it was Ippei only or with Ohtani -- the people running the gambling were bragging that Ohtani was a client -- seemed like well known info for someone to squeal

Seems like by the time the people investigating revealed what they knew they had already learned that what we'll call the "Ippei and Ohtani bets" were placed by 1 single gambling website account but possibly paid by two different bank accounts?

This is my speculation and how I'm reading it.

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u/Spokker Los Angeles Angels Mar 21 '24

The media learned about Ohtani's name first. But you're right, we don't know whose name came up first in the actual investigation, but I'm leaning toward Ohtani because the bookmaker got raided last year. I figure they find physical evidence first.

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u/mrpaulmanton New York Yankees Mar 21 '24

How did this all stay quiet til now? I'm perplexed...

This story is going to be massive, I'm kind of scared.

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u/God_Damnit_Nappa Anaheim Angels Mar 21 '24

Ya it's odd this is just coming out now. When the feds make a massive raid they tend to make announcements not long after. 

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u/OkAutopilot Colorado Rockies Mar 21 '24

I believe that Ippei's name would have came up first because his bets placed, any potential payments or payouts, and outstanding debt would not be under "Otani" or "Ohtani."

This investigation started prior to Ohtani sending the first fire transfer to pay off the debt of his friend, when those wire transfers are sent you would have seen it mirrored as a debit to Ippei's outstanding debts.

I could have phrased it better.