New Los Angeles Dodgers star two-way player Shohei Ohtani has found himself embroiled in a gambling controversy just two games into the reigning AL MVP’s career with the team.
News broke on Wednesday that the Dodgers had fired Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara for an alleged theft of millions relating to his gambling debt.
Ohtani and Mizuhara are seen as best friends. They started working together when the former made his way from Japan to the MLB’s Los Angeles Angels back in 2017.
As everything was playing out in the media, a new report emerged that Ohtani had transferred funds to pay off his interpreter’s debt. The star’s representatives then changed their story.
“Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara’s account and said Ohtani’s lawyers would issue a statement.”
Report on Shohei Ohtani situation
To be clear. Ohtani is not being implicated for illegal gambling himself. He’s also not being investigated by Major League Baseball. The attorneys for Ohtani also released a statement indicating that he was a victim of theft and didn’t wire the funds to pay for Mizuhara’s alleged gambling debt.
“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,” Ohtani’s law firm, Berk Brettler LLP, said in a statement Wednesday.
We’re not sure if MLB is going to conduct an investigation. What we do know is that the federal government is in the midst of its own investigation that includes Mizuhara’s alleged bookie Matt Bowyer and former minor league baseball player Wayne Nix. Said investigation extends into the furthest reaches of America’s gambling scene in Las Vegas, including former powers that be at MGM Grand and Resorts World.
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Shohei Ohtani could be in further legal hot water based on federal law
Even if Ohtani did not gamble himself, there are indications that his potential involvement in a wire transfer to pay off Mizuhara’s was illegal.
“If Ohtani facilitated the wire transfer, and it wasn’t a massive theft, that’s a pretty serious thing, and that could be a potential problem for him,” prominent sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach said, via Bloomberg. “Sending money to a bookie to cover a gambling loss, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, is participation in an illegal transaction.”
Wiring funds in this manner is a violation of the law.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) could also come into play here if it’s found that Ohtani engaged in multiple wire transfers to help pay off Mizuhara’s debt. Under the RICO Act, multiple wire transfers within a 10 year span to pay off an unlawful debt while being contracted in gambling activity is a violation of United States law.
“There are so many potential crimes here, state and federal, and the big dangers with violating the anti-gambling laws is that they’re all written to go after organized crime, which means all the organized crime statutes can kick in, like RICO and money laundering,” Nelson Rose of the California Council on Problem Gambling told CBS Sports.
We’re pretty much at the infancy of this scandal. There are so many unknowns. There is no reason to draw conclusions or make assumptions.
What we do know is that this is not dying down any time soon. It’s not what Ohtani and the Dodgers had envisioned when they signed him to a record-breaking $700 million contract this past winter. That’s for sure.