Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter convicted of stealing nearly $17 million from Shohei Ohtani, was sentenced to 57 months in prison on Thursday, according to The Athletic’s Sam Blum.
The sentence will begin on March 24, with three years of supervised release after Mizuhara gets out. He has also been ordered to pay nearly $17 million in restitution to Ohtani.
Mizuhara faced up to 33 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of bank fraud and tax fraud. Prosecutors recommended a 57-month sentence, which they got, while the defense requested 18 months.
Prosecutors alleged that Mizuhara made 19,000 wagers with an illegal bookie between 2021 and 2024, losing a net of $40.6 million. As Ohtani’s interpreter, de facto handler and friend since the Los Angeles Dodgers star came to the U.S. in 2018, Mizuhara covered his losses by secretly withdrawing funds from the bank account that received his client’s MLB salary, until it all fell apart after the Dodgers’ season opener last year.
Mizuhara went to great lengths to preserve his access to both Ohtani and his money, including impersonating him while calling a bank to send his bookie a six-figure wire transfer. Foreign players often depend on their interpreters for more than just baseball, and Mizuhara’s influence reached the point that Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, spoke to his client only through Mizuhara, granting him a high degree of control over Ohtani’s finances.
From the moment he was caught, Mizuhara claimed he had a gambling addiction, though prosecutors disputed that characterization by noting a lack of gambling history until he started stealing from Ohtani.
Timeline: How Ippei Mizuhara went from Shohei Ohtani’s side to prison
Until Opening Day of the 2024 MLB season, Mizuhara had been a fixture at Ohtani’s side throughout his MLB career. He teamed up with the two-way star when Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels in 2017 and was slated to earn a $500,000 salary after Ohtani signed a $700 million contract with the Dodgers.
They worked one game together in the Dodgers’ season-opening series in South Korea, with their wives watching together in the crowd.
Here’s what happened after that:
March 19, 2024: ESPN learns that federal authorities have found Ohtani’s name on wire payments to Mizuhara’s bookie, leading to Mizuhara fabricating a story about Ohtani agreeing to cover his gambling losses. The Dodgers make Mizuhara available for an interview to be used when a story is published.
March 20: Mizuhara addresses the Dodgers clubhouse, in English, with his story about Ohtani covering his losses. Ohtani, who speaks a little English, realizes that Mizuhara is not telling the truth.
Later on March 20: Ohtani’s camp disavows Mizuhara’s account of the story, and the Dodgers immediately fire him.
March 22: MLB announces an investigation into Mizuhara.
March 25: Law enforcement opens an investigation into Mizuhara.
April 11: Mizuhara is formally charged with bank fraud, and a criminal complaint is released detailing the allegations again him. The complaint explicitly identifies Ohtani as a victim, with no discussion of gambling in 9,700 pages of text messages.
April 12: Mizuhara turns himself in, and his attorney says he plans to strike a plea deal.
May 8: Mizuhara reaches a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty.
June 4: Mizuhara formally pleads guilty.
Will the Shohei Ohtani conspiracy theories ever end?
The bizarre nature of the allegations against Mizuhara and the chaotic way in which the story emerged last spring proved to be a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories that it was actually Ohtani doing the gambling, with the ostensibly loyal Mizuhara serving as a classic fall guy.
With gambling scandals involving players hitting other sports, it was a fun idea for a certain segment of fans. However, the idea has only become more flimsy with each additional detail — to the point of disintegration.
At this point, to believe that Ohtani is in any way culpable is to believe MLB, the IRS, the Department of Justice and an illegal bookie, who is currently facing his own criminal charges, have all conspired to protect a foreign national for no reason other than wanting a specific baseball team to succeed and the league to make money. The theory also hinges on the idea that Ohtani recklessly paid off that illegal bookie via his own bank account, then had his camp set up an impossibly complex double-bluff scheme to instead put the heat on his best friend.
It might be difficult to believe that an interpreter would have so much access to MLB’s most famous player that he could steal millions from right under his nose, but that’s certainly more believable than the alternative.
Still, conspiracy theories have continued to appear in comment section after comment section, though the noise clearly didn’t bother Ohtani on the field. In his first season as a Dodger, he won his third career MVP award, won his first career World Series ring and recorded the first 50-home-run, 50-stolen-base season in MLB history.
