Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accuse interpreter of ‘massive theft’ tied to alleged gambling

[ookami7m]

One thing everyone talking about their banking experience is missing: Rich people have a whole different experience of EVERYTHING than we do. It is completely plausible that banking falls in that. No phone push notices, different procedures for access and verification etc.

Apologies if any examples here are from gazillionaires

 

[BigSoxFan]

Perhaps:

A. If the scammer had the access to steal $4.5 million then he may have had access to change the account settings.

B. Obtaining fuck you and then some money means and you literally don't care about even reading bank alerts.

But you likely pay people who care about your banking activity, even if you don’t yourself.

 

[joe dokes]

It IS evidence of betting.

It may not be ENOUGH evidence to get a grand jury to indict or a jury to convict. (Or even to support any charges at all.)

But......IF there's ever a trial or some tribunal in which the question presented is "Did Ohtani bet?" the likelihood that payments from his bank account to a bookie will be presented to the fact-finder is close to 100%.
At this point. We are all speculating what conclusions to draw from this "evidence." But to say that "payments to a bookie from your bank account is not evidence of betting" is not accurate.

 

[HfxBob]

I mentioned this shortly after Ohtani issued his statement and really haven't seen any other discussion about it, so perhaps @Myt1 or any other legal types might want to weigh in. One of the obvious questions pertains to Mizuhara's access to Ohtani's finances, but what really struck me was the statement explaining the change in stories. Ohtani claimed that his spokeperson/people gave the original story of him wiring money on Mizuhara's behalf because Mizuhara lied to them. I can't for a moment fathom representing someone of Ohtani's status, being presented with a story of this magnitude and addressing anyone without A) verifying the story with Ohtani and B) consulting with him as to how he wants me to handle this moving forward.

Just reading Jason Gay's piece in the WSJ about Ohtani's statement, and he raised the same question.

What's occurring to me is that whatever the real story is, it's not going to make sense in some way. If the worst is true and Ohtani was gambling and paying the bookie himself, couldn't he have found a better way to do it than a series of wire transfers, with each one attracting a lot of attention from the bank? That's almost like saying "catch me, please."

 

[YTF]

If Shohei truly didn’t know about the betting, then Ippei must have convinced the bookie that he was placing bets on behalf of Shohei, right? How else would the bookie extend that kind of credit? And it tracks with the bookie telling people he had Shohei as a client. Ippei loses some bets, wires 500k from Shohei’s account to cover some losses. Bookie thinks he has a whale for a client. All good. The question is…where did winnings go? Ippei must have won some bets, right? Did it get wired to Shohei’s account? Or did Ippei get paid in cash? If so, where is that cash? Did it get deposited into Ippei’s account? Did he give it to Shohei? Find the proceeds from winnings and you have your real bettor!

If the losses outpaced any winnings I would think they would be deducted from the debt owed and not actually paid out. If not then I would assume that an illegal bookmaker is not wiring money into someone's account, though I can't honestly say that actually know how that all works.

 

[CoffeeNerdness]

But you likely pay people who care about your banking activity, even if you don’t yourself.

Which leads back to point A. He was conned by someone he trusted.

 

[allmanbro]

Which leads back to point A. He was conned by someone he trusted.

Ya, I think the only way Ohtani's story, and story change, make sense is something like the following: Mizuhara comes to Ohtani and tells him he needs help. Maybe he convinces Ohtani that the bets that accrued the debt were legal, maybe he tells him the debt came from something else. In any case, he convinces Ohtani and Ohtani himself makes the transfer. When the story originally breaks, Ohtani tells that story "I was helping a friend". Then some lawyers get to him and explain that the bets were illegal and even making the payment might open Ohtani to legal consequences. Ohtani changes his story, and now calls it lying and theft. If this is what happened, I think it is fair to say that both versions are reasonable descriptions of the same event.

This strikes me as not exactly implausible. It's always hard to tell what is just public image, but it would not shock me to learn that Ohtani is so baseball obsessed that he's a bit naive about other stuff, and too trusting of Mizuhara. But it's one reasonably plausible version of the story among many, given what we know now.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Just reading Jason Gay's piece in the WSJ about Ohtani's statement, and he raised the same question.

What's occurring to me is that whatever the real story is, it's not going to make sense in some way. If the worst is true and Ohtani was gambling and paying the bookie himself, couldn't he have found a better way to do it than a series of wire transfers, with each one attracting a lot of attention from the bank? That's almost like saying "catch me, please."

The larger the ego the larger ones sense of invincibility. Seinfeld fans can relate to the episode when Keith Hernandez is on a date with Elaine debating whether to kiss her and the audio is of him thinking to himself, “I won the MVP, I can do anything. I’m Keith Hernandez!”

 

[Tokyo Sox]

If Shohei truly didn’t know about the betting, then Ippei must have convinced the bookie that he was placing bets on behalf of Shohei, right? How else would the bookie extend that kind of credit?

Or Ippei could have just said he was Shohei - to the bookie, to any bank calling asking for ID or personal information confirmation, etc. If he had all the information and access to the account(s), which he probably did, it wouldn't have been that hard. Throw on a slightly thicker Japanese accent and you're good to go.

Also, regarding "that kind of credit," is it definitely the case that there was a one-time hole of $4.5m? Or was that just the total Ippei is alleged to have stolen, over some period of time? I honestly don't know so apologies if this part is public knowledge and I'm missing it. But even if the bookie knew it was Ippei, but he paid 500k here and there, having the occasional 500k-1mm marker probably wouldn't have been unthinkable? But I don't know all that many high end bookies so who knows.

 

[Pablo's TB Lover]

If the losses outpaced any winnings I would think they would be deducted from the debt owed and not actually paid out. If not then I would assume that an illegal bookmaker is not wiring money into someone's account, though I can't honestly say that actually know how that all works.

In any case, you'd get a clear picture from Ippei's deposits to conclude that either:

A) He was banking the winnings, if paid out (another piece of evidence that he was placing bets with Ohtani's money); or
B) He made large deposits, not from winnings, but from directly scamming Ohtani by transferring smaller amounts to his account than the $500k wires to the bookie (second-hand evidence of Ippei's character and likelihood of conning Ohtani generally)
C) There is no unusual activity and you are left with only the facts of the deposits from Ohtani's account direct to a bookie and the follow-up Ippei and Ohtani press statements.

 

[HfxBob]

The larger the ego the larger ones sense of invincibility. Seinfeld fans can relate to the episode when Keith Hernandez is on a date with Elaine debating whether to kiss her and the audio is of him thinking to himself, “I won the MVP, I can do anything. I’m Keith Hernandez!”

And that does make some sense.

But in the last few days leading to this no-looking-back statement by Ohtani, surely his people were digging into the matter of how the hell those transfers were made. Wonder what they found out...

 

[HomeRunBaker]

If the losses outpaced any winnings I would think they would be deducted from the debt owed and not actually paid out. If not then I would assume that an illegal bookmaker is not wiring money into someone's account, though I can't honestly say that actually know how that all works.

This part of the story is important. In the large majority of agreements between player and illegal bookie the form of payments that are regularly exchanged are going to be consistent. If one side pays cash, the other is very likely to pay cash. PayPal, Venmo, Bitcoin is commonly used now…there would almost certainly be a back and forth trail.

With the gambling operation being criminally investigated there will be entities who will see if funds were wired into Ohtani’s account (which would clearly be THE smoking gun for him betting himself). Legal people here would know better if MLB would ever be able to gain access to this specific information.

 

[Tokyo Sox]

if funds were wired into Ohtani’s account (which would clearly be THE smoking gun for him betting himself).

Why? Maybe Ippei wasn't trying to steal from Shohei, but just had a real gambling problem and intended to make him whole again if only his damned luck would turn...

 

[Jace II]

What's occurring to me is that whatever the real story is, it's not going to make sense in some way. If the worst is true and Ohtani was gambling and paying the bookie himself, couldn't he have found a better way to do it than a series of wire transfers, with each one attracting a lot of attention from the bank? That's almost like saying "catch me, please."

What are the other ways to pay an illegal business $4.5M that won't attract attention? Doing it in cash is basically shouting "I'm doing something illegal". Doing it in many hundreds or thousands of tiny transactions to the same party is a logistical mess and likely going to trip different kinds of banking system alerts.

For example, 450 ACH transactions of $10,000 each to the same party would likely be a nightmare to execute and track (I question whether anyone careless or addicted enough to get $4.5M in debt to a bookie is going to have that kind of patience or meticulous attention to detail to pay it off) and is likely going to look very odd to the bank. Different software might have different thresholds of what constitutes odd behavior, so it's hard to say for sure, but I think large wires isn't any worse than any other method.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Why? Maybe Ippei wasn't trying to steal from Shohei, but just had a real gambling problem and intended to make him whole again if only his damned luck would turn...

Good lord. The real world doesn’t work this way.

 

[HfxBob]

What are the other ways to pay an illegal business $4.5M that won't attract attention? Doing it in cash is basically shouting "I'm doing something illegal". Doing it in many hundreds or thousands of tiny transactions to the same party is a logistical mess and likely going to trip different kinds of banking system alerts.

For example, 450 ACH transactions of $10,000 each to the same party would likely be a nightmare to execute and track (I question whether anyone careless or addicted enough to get $4.5M in debt to a bookie is going to have that kind of patience or meticulous attention to detail to pay it off) and is likely going to look very odd to the bank. Different software might have different thresholds of what constitutes odd behavior, so it's hard to say for sure, but I think large wires isn't any worse than any other method.

I'm sure you're right.

The new question I'm grappling with is that Ohtani's people had a period of 3-4 days to look into the transfers themselves before he made his statement. They must have found out something one way or the other?

 

[Pablo's TB Lover]

What are the other ways to pay an illegal business $4.5M that won't attract attention? Doing it in cash is basically shouting "I'm doing something illegal". Doing it in many hundreds or thousands of tiny transactions to the same party is a logistical mess and likely going to trip different kinds of banking system alerts.

For example, 450 ACH transactions of $10,000 each to the same party would likely be a nightmare to execute and track (I question whether anyone careless or addicted enough to get $4.5M in debt to a bookie is going to have that kind of patience or meticulous attention to detail to pay it off) and is likely going to look very odd to the bank. Different software might have different thresholds of what constitutes odd behavior, so it's hard to say for sure, but I think large wires isn't any worse than any other method.

Where Ohtani's naiveté certainly could have come into play was the bookie might have had a fronting LLC like a "personal services" company, and he was convinced by the bookie or by Ippei that there will be no issues since the bank will see you are wiring to a "legitimate" business.

 

[Tokyo Sox]

Good lord. The real world doesn’t work this way.

K. The post I responded to before yours asked, "If Shohei truly didn’t know about the betting, then Ippei must have convinced the bookie that he was placing bets on behalf of Shohei, right? How else would the bookie extend that kind of credit?"

If that theory is correct, or if my response that perhaps Ippei just convinced the bookie he was Shohei is correct, isn't it plausible that Ippei would want the funds to go back into the same account they came from? To keep up appearances and, if that's what was happening, to keep the credit lines open?

Again, anything could be true. I'm pushing back against your post like any of the others that make definitive statements: X is definitely Y, A is obviously B, funds transferred into Ohtani's account would be THE smoking gun that he himself bet...etc. No it wouldn't.

 

[Jace II]

Where Ohtani's naiveté certainly could have come into play was the bookie might have had a fronting LLC like a "personal services" company, and he was convinced by the bookie or by Ippei that there will be no issues since the bank will see you are wiring to a "legitimate" business.

My post was more about the supposition that if Ohtani had made these payments intentionally, and whether there was a less suspicious way to go about it (I can't think of one).

That said, I'm not sure what you're saying is really consistent with Ohtani's recent quotes. Ohtani said, just yesterday:

• "he stole money from my account"
• "I just found out about it a couple days ago"
• "up until that team meeting, I didn't know Ippei had a gambling addiction and was in massive debt."

I guess you could interpret these as maybe meaning he did know he Ippei was transferring out a lot of his money, just not what it was for... but I think that's a massive stretch. To me Ohtani is clearly saying he had no idea about these transfers whatsoever until last week (I'm not arguing whether he's telling the truth or not here).

 

[joe dokes]

One thing everyone talking about their banking experience is missing: Rich people have a whole different experience of EVERYTHING than we do. It is completely plausible that banking falls in that. No phone push notices, different procedures for access and verification etc.

Apologies if any examples here are from gazillionaires

I think this -- incomprehensible wealth of a young sports star -- is an important thing to consider in our speculative universe. We all regularly see stories of players with detrimental hangers-on, often costing them lots of money. Ohtani had one. (Maybe he's not a totally malevolent hanger-on). It's not inconceivable to me that, just as some players give their closest hangers-on cars to drive, or apartments to use, that Ohtani gave his guy the "keys" to a bank account. And just as its likely that the other players' advisors probably tell the players that its a bad idea to give this "other guy" a car, a gun, 50 grand and an apartment, it's also not inconceivable that Ohtani's advisors told him "we advise against this."

"I gave my friend access to a bank account so he could live nice," is not entirely inconsistent with the idea that the friend using the account to run up massive gambling debts is "stealing." It may not be how I would describe it, but it makes some kind of sense.

 

[Pablo's TB Lover]

My post was more about the supposition that if Ohtani had made these payments intentionally, and whether there was a less suspicious way to go about it (I can't think of one).

That said, I'm not sure what you're saying is really consistent with Ohtani's recent quotes. Ohtani said, just yesterday:

• "he stole money from my account"
• "I just found out about it a couple days ago"
• "up until that team meeting, I didn't know Ippei had a gambling addiction and was in massive debt."

I guess you could interpret these as maybe meaning he did know he Ippei was transferring out a lot of his money, just not what it was for... but I think that's a massive stretch. To me Ohtani is clearly saying he had no idea about these transfers whatsoever until last week (I'm not arguing whether he's telling the truth or not here).

Sorry didn't make myself clear, I used Ohtani's name but this can be replaced with Ippei's naiveté if he conned Ohtani. In Ippei's case, his "gamble" was that the money could be returned with winning bets and Ohtani none the wiser down the road without the authorities blowing up this illegal gambling. Not that I'm saying his thinking would be rational in this case, it is apparent in the most charitable interpretation for Ohtani that Ippei behaved like an addict with the amount of money bet and the ability to hide this from his former friend.

 

[beautokyo]

Or Ippei could have just said he was Shohei - to the bookie, to any bank calling asking for ID or personal information confirmation, etc. If he had all the information and access to the account(s), which he probably did, it wouldn't have been that hard. Throw on a slightly thicker Japanese accent and you're good to go.

EEeeeHHhhhhhhhh

 

[8slim]

It is worth noting that athletes, musicians, actors, artists, and the like have been defrauded time and time again by people close to them for sums FAR greater than $4.5 million.

So, I'm not entirely persuaded by the "someone had to know" argument, since we have seen frequently in other cases that no one knew aside from the person committing the fraud.

I mean, that dude with the Jaguars stole $22 million over several years and was only just caught.

 

[Pablo's TB Lover]

It is worth noting that athletes, musicians, actors, artists, and the like have been defrauded time and time again by people close to them for sums FAR greater than $4.5 million.

So, I'm not entirely persuaded by the "someone had to know" argument, since we have seen frequently in other cases that no one knew aside from the person committing the fraud.

I mean, that dude with the Jaguars stole $22 million over several years and was only just caught.

Not saying this wasn't 100% a con, but what would have made me feel more confident in this is if Ohtani said something to the effect that he and Ippei had a shared account so Ippei himself could authorize the wires. Maybe it will be revealed in future reporting/investigations but he could have been ahead of the P.R. battle with this detail, if accurate. Otherwise, I keep falling back on either Ohtani knew about the payments or he was just so utterly brainwashed by Ippei and dumb as a brick to the point he didn't think twice about authorizing nebulous $500k payments...

 

[BigSoxFan]

It is worth noting that athletes, musicians, actors, artists, and the like have been defrauded time and time again by people close to them for sums FAR greater than $4.5 million.

So, I'm not entirely persuaded by the "someone had to know" argument, since we have seen frequently in other cases that no one knew aside from the person committing the fraud.

I mean, that dude with the Jaguars stole $22 million over several years and was only just caught.

If the proper tracking systems were in place, someone would know the money left the account. The pertinent information that we don’t yet know is whether or not Ippei had access and what Ohtani’s financial advisor situation was during this time. If he didn’t have any of this in place, we’re talking gross incompetence by those who advise him. But that remains the most charitable explanation.

 

[8slim]

The other thing that I don't buy is the idea that the first story incriminated Ohtani, so his team changed it to solely blame the interpreter of theft. Wouldn't lying to investigators put one in far more jeopardy than simply pleading ignorance to the illegality of wiring the money on behalf of a friend? Ohtani's getting prosecuted for the latter, but not the former?

Look, maybe he bet himself and this is all lie heaped upon lie. I have no idea. But some of these points about it being an elaborate scheme don't land with me.

 

[Jace II]

It's not inconceivable to me that, just as some players give their closest hangers-on cars to drive, or apartments to use, that Ohtani gave his guy the "keys" to a bank account.

Just from my own experience seeing multi-million-dollar business wires get executed, I do think that this is at least possible (may depend on the bank). Yes, giant wire transfers need authorization and approvals, but someone is designated as the authorizing party. That someone can often be an accountant, not necessarily the "owner" of the bank account. There are obviously differences between business and personal banking, and I don't really know about high net worth private bank accounts, but I assume there may be an analogous concept. Perhaps part of their arrangement was Mizuhara acting as his de-facto bookkeeper for purchases. Even if Mizuhara wasn't separately authorized to make transfers, it's possible Ohtani could have just given him his personal credentials and all confirming information - physical copies of IDs, etc - needed to authorize transfers (short of an in-person authorization requirement, which I doubt is needed).

The fact that Mizuhara was also Ohtani's translator and thus by default had the ability to filter / manipulate information getting to Ohtani also makes this seem more possible.

If it hadn't been for that really strange initial story change, I think people would generally assume the above happened.

 

[8slim]

If the proper tracking systems were in place, someone would know the money left the account. The pertinent information that we don’t yet know is whether or not Ippei had access and what Ohtani’s financial advisor situation was during this time. If he didn’t have any of this in place, we’re talking gross incompetence by those who advise him. But that remains the most charitable explanation.

Again though, why didn't the Jacksonville Jaguars know that $22 million had been siphoned away from them? The guy was literally in their finance department and had to clear every expense he fraudulently conducted.

Board favorite Billy Joel lost $90 million due to his manager's fraud. Why didn't someone pick up on the $90 million making it's way out the door?

People miss shit all the time, is what I'm saying.

 

[BigSoxFan]

Again though, why didn't the Jacksonville Jaguars know that $22 million had been siphoned away from them? The guy was literally in their finance department and had to clear every expense he fraudulently conducted.

Board favorite Billy Joel lost $90 million due to his manager's fraud. Why didn't someone pick up on the $90 million making it's way out the door?

People miss shit all the time, is what I'm saying.

I deal with this stuff professionally and I know the systems that are in place for clients like this. Fraud generally happens with poor internal controls, like trusting a business manager unconditionally. I can’t speak to the Jaguars situation but whoever their CFO is sucks at his/her job.

Fraud is not easy when proper systems are in place. It’s quite possible that people DID notice and question the wires and were told to stand down, either maliciously or through naïvety. That happens too.

We will hopefully get more info on this and I want very much for this to be a gigantic false alarm but I still have a lot of questions.

 

[CoffeeNerdness]

I think this -- incomprehensible wealth of a young sports star -- is an important thing to consider in our speculative universe. We all regularly see stories of players with detrimental hangers-on, often costing them lots of money. Ohtani had one. (Maybe he's not a totally malevolent hanger-on). It's not inconceivable to me that, just as some players give their closest hangers-on cars to drive, or apartments to use, that Ohtani gave his guy the "keys" to a bank account. And just as its likely that the other players' advisors probably tell the players that its a bad idea to give this "other guy" a car, a gun, 50 grand and an apartment, it's also not inconceivable that Ohtani's advisors told him "we advise against this."

"I gave my friend access to a bank account so he could live nice," is not entirely inconsistent with the idea that the friend using the account to run up massive gambling debts is "stealing." It may not be how I would describe it, but it makes some kind of sense.

I think if this story were 'a close associate to Shohei stole $4.5 million to buy luxury items for himself' then this thread would probably be 2-3 pages long. It would just be accepted that he got de-frauded because it's a story heard a million times and everyone would move on to the next story. The salaciousness of the gambling angle makes it a whole different ball of wax and, frankly, there's a desire to theory craft ways to pin a massive gambling scandal on one of the most remarkable players to ever play baseball.

Personally, I'm think Occam's Razor applies. Defrauding/stealing money from athletes/rich people is a far more common occurrence than a star player getting deeply in debt to an illegal gambling operation. Obviously, information is limited and more could surface, but were I a betting man...

 

[beautokyo]

I wonder who was in charge of the finances when Shohei gave the exotic sports car to Joe Kelly's wife for Joe's number. That may shed a little light

 

[Jace II]

One other thing I've heard people say about this that I don't agree with - that this was a small enough amount of money to Ohtani to be insignificant.

At the time of those transfers, he hadn't signed his $700M deal yet, and obviously hadn't received his 2024 salary yet (which is small anyway given the deferrals). He'd made just under $40M from the Angels to that point, and I don't think THAT much more from his earlier Japan career. For endorsements, I'll just assume directionally he doubled his baseball income, so let's say he's made $100M to date.

At his income bracket in California, he's paying half of income in taxes between federal and state - he hadn't deferred any income yet, so unless he had some loss-generating or charity tax dodge, this had to happen. He's got an agent to pay, and he may have made illiquid investments in things like private equity funds (rich people do stuff like that). Assuming he's spent some money as well, on a house and salaries for his advisor team, he very likely has well under $50M in the bank.

$4.5M is a pretty meaningful sum in that context, it's likely 10%+ of his liquid assets. Let me know if I'm missing money somewhere.

 

[lexrageorge]

Again though, why didn't the Jacksonville Jaguars know that $22 million had been siphoned away from them? The guy was literally in their finance department and had to clear every expense he fraudulently conducted.

Board favorite Billy Joel lost $90 million due to his manager's fraud. Why didn't someone pick up on the $90 million making it's way out the door?

People miss shit all the time, is what I'm saying.

Agree, shit like the above happens all the time and it's barely a paragraph on page 17. Or you hear about it watching a documentary on E! or some streaming service. You cannot always assume that celebrities have hired someone competent to manage their money. Or that they have given their financial advisors complete access to *all* of their banking accounts. Especially an international celebrity such as Ohtani. There is plenty of opportunity for $4.5M to walk without people "knowing" about it or it even triggering alarm bells.

Yes, any reputable financial advising firm would keep tight reins on the money going in and out and would flag anything suspicious. But they only have access to the money they are given access to, and if I just signed a $700M contract I wouldn't put all my eggs into the hands of a single financial advising firm either.

 

[8slim]

I deal with this stuff professionally and I know the systems that are in place for clients like this. Fraud generally happens with poor internal controls, like trusting a business manager unconditionally. I can’t speak to the Jaguars situation but whoever their CFO is sucks at his/her job.

Fraud is not easy when proper systems are in place. It’s quite possible that people DID notice and question the wires and were told to stand down, either maliciously or through naïvety. That happens too.

We will hopefully get more info on this and I want very much for this to be a gigantic false alarm but I still have a lot of questions.

Got it. I'm definitely not trying to question your professional expertise. I'm curious to see what transpires from here.

 

[Jace II]

I think if this story were 'a close associate to Shohei stole $4.5 million to buy luxury items for himself' then this thread would probably be 2-3 pages long. It would just be accepted that he got de-frauded because it's a story heard a million times and everyone would move on to the next story. The salaciousness of the gambling angle makes it a whole different ball of wax and, frankly, there's a desire to theory craft ways to pin a massive gambling scandal on one of the most remarkable players to ever play baseball.

Personally, I'm think Occam's Razor applies. Defrauding/stealing money from athletes/rich people is a far more common occurrence than a star player getting deeply in debt to an illegal gambling operation. Obviously, information is limited and more could surface, but were I a betting man...

Perhaps, but in my opinion it got a lot more salacious because his story changed in a very significant and honestly alarming way early on, and then he went on to publicly and directly accuse his translator of significant crimes. He kind of escalated things in a way he didn't have to - which speaks to either him being really transparent or being an idiot.

The betting definitely contributed because it's become a major part of the sports world very recently and we've all been waiting somewhat for what the first scandal around it would be. This might not be that first scandal anyway.

 

[BigSoxFan]

Got it. I'm definitely not trying to question your professional expertise. I'm curious to see what transpires from here.

Ha, feel free to do so! Was just providing my perspective that for clients at my firm, committing fraud would be very tough and I know client teams that have snuffed out fraud attempts like this. But I think Lex makes a good point that we don’t really know how his financial empire is set up and without that information and knowing how Ohtani operates behind the scenes, it’s really hard to draw firm conclusions.

 

[8slim]

Perhaps, but in my opinion it got a lot more salacious because his story changed in a very significant and honestly alarming way early on, and then he went on to publicly and directly accuse his translator of significant crimes.

The betting definitely contributed because it's become a major part of the sports world very recently and we've all been waiting somewhat for what the first scandal around it would be. This might not be that first scandal anyway.

Funny thing is that the "first scandal" has already happened. Multiple times. The head coach of the Cavaliers said he received threats last season from gamblers, and the story barely lasted 24 hours.

“They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said before the Cavs hosted the Miami Heat. “So it is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking for sure.”

Apparently law enforcement found the guy doing it, and he wasn't prosecuted.

Needless to say, Ohtahi is a star on an entirely different level, hence the attention here. But there's been a bunch of nefarious gambling-related stories out in the past couple years. They all seem to go away quickly.

 

[Rovin Romine]

It IS evidence of betting.

It may not be ENOUGH evidence to get a grand jury to indict or a jury to convict. (Or even to support any charges at all.)

But......IF there's ever a trial or some tribunal in which the question presented is "Did Ohtani bet?" the likelihood that payments from his bank account to a bookie will be presented to the fact-finder is close to 100%.
At this point. We are all speculating what conclusions to draw from this "evidence." But to say that "payments to a bookie from your bank account is not evidence of betting" is not accurate.

You've made this point a few times, and I'd like to take a moment to echo it - because it seems to be overlooked.

I think a very easy analogy to answer "what is evidence?" is American football. If a fact does not move the ball down the field it's not relevant to the matter at hand, and so is not evidence. If a fact can move the ball down the field in either direction it's probative (tending to prove) evidence. You can then characterize how strong that evidence is, and what direction it moves the ball in.

We plug that basic understanding of probative evidence into a few different paradigms with wildly different standards: 1) what it takes to make us personally suspicious, 2) what it takes to personally convince us of something, 3) what it takes for the cops/MLB to start an investigation (probable cause), 4) what it takes to convince MLB to impose penalties (convincing the commissioner), 5) what it takes to convict someone in a court of law (proof beyond reasonable doubt.)

Often this gets confused when people use words like "proof" as in "X does not prove anything." What does that even mean? It may be enough to trigger someone's private personal suspicions, or start an investigation, or convince Manfred. . .but not enough to convince a criminal jury.

***

Here, there's multiple source reporting (which is also not denied by Ohtani) that $4.5M of Ohtani's money went from Ohtani's account to an illegal bookie. That's probative evidence. But what's it evidence of? What does it tend to prove or establish?

Well, firstly, the fact is probative of the fact itself (sounds tautological, but hear this out). Which means that if it were a crime (or MLB-sanctionable activity) to merely wire money to an illegal bookie, Ohtani's in trouble - nothing more need be established/proven. We're done. It's also enough to raise private/personal/law enforcement suspicion. Because in a common-sense context, people usually wire money to illegal bookies for illegal gambling.

But how far does that fact go? Well, it's more likely a crime/sanctionable to knowingly wire money to a bookie. In which case the fact is still suspicion triggering, but is now only probative to something short of the goal-line. Now it's a matter of determining his knowledge of what the money was for, or that the recipient was a bookie. "What did they know" is a fairly common issue in civil/criminal law, and I'm here to tell you it's almost always proved by inference. Meaning, a fact-finder can look at the overall circumstances and guess as to what was most likely the subjective knowledge that Ohtani had at any point. A confession is not required.

So where does that leave us here?

Well, in all contexts it's enormously probative evidence that money was wired from Ohtani's account to an illegal bookie for gambling debts. In some contexts, that standing alone is enough to establish Ohtani bet, and the debts were his.

However, while Ohtani does not quite manage to deny that he personally wired the money, he does claim that some or all of that money (or other money?) was stolen (theft) or tricked (fraud/defrauded) from him. But he does not say how. That very vague assertion could mean several things: Mizuhara accessed the accounts without permission, or Mizuhara lied to Ohtani about what the money was for, or Mizuhara exaggerated something.

In a criminal context, Ohtani does not have to prove anything - the state/prosecution would have to prove everything to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. But in terms of public opinion and MLB sanctions, the standard is lower, and Ohtani does have a burden. By putting this narrative out there, Ohtani has invited his story to be weighed and examined.

I'd sum this up (at the moment) by saying:

1) The bare fact of the wire transfer moves the ball strongly down the field toward Ohtani gambling. It's probative evidence.​

​

2) Ohtani's counter narratives moves the ball back to just short of the goal line - but how far?​

​

3) Ohtani's best explanation has gaps and omissions. (Again, those might be filled in, but have not been filled in yet.) The play is disputed, if you will.​

​

4) Ohtani also has multiple counter-narratives that are contradictory, and the explanation for how that contradiction came about is currently lacking. (There may be a convincing explanation for it, but nothing of the sort has been put forward by Ohtani at this time.)​

​

What the conversation is doing here is actually valuable and useful. It's testing possibilities and pointing out issues in 3 and 4. But we have to be very careful to remember that none of this is going to impact # 1.

Moreover (and this is where the football analogy breaks, down, though a linear analogy holds) things may come to light that move the ball outside of whatever Ohtani says or does not say. If, for example, there's a single text between Mizuhara and Ohtani that discusses Mizuhara gambling.

 

[YTF]

It is worth noting that athletes, musicians, actors, artists, and the like have been defrauded time and time again by people close to them for sums FAR greater than $4.5 million.

So, I'm not entirely persuaded by the "someone had to know" argument, since we have seen frequently in other cases that no one knew aside from the person committing the fraud.

I mean, that dude with the Jaguars stole $22 million over several years and was only just caught.

You're 100% correct about others getting duped, but the thing that sticks in my head is the changing of the story and that his spokespeople took the "lies" that Mizuhara fed to them as gospel without confirmation from Ohtani before speaking publicly.

 

[Jace II]

Funny thing is that the "first scandal" has already happened. Multiple times. The head coach of the Cavaliers said he received threats last season from gamblers, and the story barely lasted 24 hours.

“They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said before the Cavs hosted the Miami Heat. “So it is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking for sure.”

Apparently law enforcement found the guy doing it, and he wasn't prosecuted.

Needless to say, Ohtahi is a star on an entirely different level, hence the attention here. But there's been a bunch of nefarious gambling-related stories out in the past couple years. They all seem to go away quickly.

Yeah that's definitely a hint of the icebergs ahead, but I don't think any have really been hit yet. When someone gets hurt or there's direct evidence of game fixing (that could happen here, but maybe not the most likely possibility at this point) it will get loud I think

 

[Heating up in the bullpen]

The story will make a lot more sense when Shohei reveals that the person hired to run his finances is Manny Ramirez.

Gold!

 

[Red Right Ankle]

EEeeeHHhhhhhhhh

I can hear this in my head. Straight back to confused students from my Osaka teaching days.

 

[Myt1]

I mentioned this shortly after Ohtani issued his statement and really haven't seen any other discussion about it, so perhaps @Myt1 or any other legal types might want to weigh in. One of the obvious questions pertains to Mizuhara's access to Ohtani's finances, but what really struck me was the statement explaining the change in stories. Ohtani claimed that his spokeperson/people gave the original story of him wiring money on Mizuhara's behalf because Mizuhara lied to them. I can't for a moment fathom representing someone of Ohtani's status, being presented with a story of this magnitude and addressing anyone without A) verifying the story with Ohtani and B) consulting with him as to how he wants me to handle this moving forward.

I think there is a lot of smoke, much of it bad, some of it unexplained, and some of the explanations for the smoke dubious but not completely impossible given certain sets of facts. It’s not hard to look at what we’ve been told so far—and what we haven’t—and conclude that it’s currently more likely than not that Ohtani himself was responsible for these bets. But I wouldn’t be jaw-droppingly shocked either way.

With regard to your specific question regarding PR statements, it’s not unheard of for “experts” to fire off half-baked stories in crisis. Message foresight, investigation, and discipline are difficult, especially when people are existentially worried. One of my old bosses was basically a ninja at doing it once and doing it right and then repeating the same story over and over again, and the level of work and commitment it takes to do that rankles people sometimes.

 

[Average Reds]

The other thing that I don't buy is the idea that the first story incriminated Ohtani, so his team changed it to solely blame the interpreter of theft. Wouldn't lying to investigators put one in far more jeopardy than simply pleading ignorance to the illegality of wiring the money on behalf of a friend? Ohtani's getting prosecuted for the latter, but not the former?

Look, maybe he bet himself and this is all lie heaped upon lie. I have no idea. But some of these points about it being an elaborate scheme don't land with me.

I'm not sure I understand, because the bolded is precisely what happened.

That's not dispositive - there could be legitimate reasons for the change. (The second story may be true.) But, it's important to remember that the first story was a communication that was crafted and disseminated by Ohtani's team in a series of calculated statements/appearances before being reversed once Ohtani's legal representatives got involved.

I do agree with you about the fact that, if they are lying about this, it's potentially much more damaging than the original story. Then again, the fact that the story changed and the interpreter appears to have gone into hiding at the precisely scheduled moment he was outside the jurisdiction of the United States seems ... convenient.

I know nothing other than what has been reported, so no expertise on my part. I'm also prepared for the possibility that what we are hearing now is the truth. However absent a logical explanation of how, exactly, it could have happened, I'm deeply skeptical.

 

[JayMags71]

It is worth noting that athletes, musicians, actors, artists, and the like have been defrauded time and time again by people close to them for sums FAR greater than $4.5 million.

So, I'm not entirely persuaded by the "someone had to know" argument, since we have seen frequently in other cases that no one knew aside from the person committing the fraud.

I mean, that dude with the Jaguars stole $22 million over several years and was only just caught.

Yeah, and in a non-sports story, Dane Cook’s brother stole $12M from him over several years. At one point, he wrote himself a $3M check, which, to me, is an unfathomable amount for a single check.

 

[Rovin Romine]

The other thing that I don't buy is the idea that the first story incriminated Ohtani, so his team changed it to solely blame the interpreter of theft. Wouldn't lying to investigators put one in far more jeopardy than simply pleading ignorance to the illegality of wiring the money on behalf of a friend? Ohtani's getting prosecuted for the latter, but not the former?

Look, maybe he bet himself and this is all lie heaped upon lie. I have no idea. But some of these points about it being an elaborate scheme don't land with me.

I don't think that Ohtani's team "lied to investigators." They spoke to ESPN, and then Mizuhara gave an interview to ESPN. That's where the public "I wired money to help my friend" narrative comes from. They can lie to ESPN all day long, and while that complicates things from a law-enforcement perspective, lying to ESPN is not a crime.

Personally, I think the initial story has two basic possibilities:

1) Team Ohtani essentially told the truth, but didn't realize it was problematic.​

2) Team Ohtani was manipulated by Mizuhara into a lie, which was then discovered and walked back.​

Both have their problems. The first is that it's massively incompetent. The second is the number of persons involved makes it unlikely.

 

[8slim]

I'm not sure I understand, because the bolded is precisely what happened.

That's not dispositive - there could be legitimate reasons for the change. (The second story may be true.) But, it's important to remember that the first story was a communication that was crafted and disseminated by Ohtani's team in a series of calculated statements/appearances before being reversed once Ohtani's legal representatives got involved.

I do agree with you about the fact that, if they are lying about this, it's potentially much more damaging than the original story. Then again, the fact that the story changed and the interpreter appears to have gone into hiding at the precisely scheduled moment he was outside the jurisdiction of the United States seems ... convenient.

I know nothing other than what has been reported, so no expertise on my part. I'm also prepared for the possibility that what we are hearing now is the truth. However absent a logical explanation of how, exactly, it could have happened, I'm deeply skeptical.

Perhaps I misunderstand the sequence of events here. I thought the first story was the interpreter saying that his good buddy Shohei covered his debts. Because he’s swell and all.

Then, as I understood some to be saying here, Ohtahni’s team thought “oh no, that explanation means Shohei committed a crime, we gotta have him lie and say it was theft”.

I guess I’m challenging that his team changed the story to avoid one crime, and had him commit another crime to cover that up (lying about it being theft).

I understand how one thing followed another, I’m just disputing the suggested motivation. Seems like if the first story was true they’d just stick with it, because changing it brings another crime into the mix.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

Seems like a lot of people are looking at this from the point of view of an American who is fluent in English, but that's not who Ohtani is.
The idea that anyone who reads a statement and won't take questions is covering something up? Maybe, but the fact that he doesn't speak English probably has a lot to do with why he didn't take questions on a hugely public matter with legal ramifications. Say the wrong thing and you screw yourself badly. If American reporters had questions, they would presumably be translated through an interpreter(!) into Japanese and then the interpreter would translate his answers back into English. I can see why he wouldn't want to publicly try to answer questions like that. (Even if eventually any confusion might get sorted out, if he says the wrong thing publicly on this, it could be a huge issue for him.)

And as for why he would let his translator access his bank accounts-- if he has accounts with American banks, why wouldn't his translator be the one dealing with it? Banks would probably make their own translators available to a super wealthy client like Ohtani, but why would he rather deal with an interpreter from a bank who he doesn't know, rather than just tell his most trusted friend to take care of whatever he wants done?

Being the translator for a super-rich guy in a country where very very few other people can communicate with him is a position that could really easily be exploited by someone looking to do so. "Yo, this text message from the bank in english is about the money for that condo you bought last week, just put your fingerprint on the button to approve it and I'll take care of everything else."

I'm not saying Ohtani is innocent or guilty of anything, just that his translator had to have a massive amount of influence over him, and that due to the language barrier, Ohtani's reaction to this isn't necessarily similar to how American stars would handle it.

 

[Rovin Romine]

Seems like a lot of people are looking at this from the point of view of an American who is fluent in English, but that's not who Ohtani is.
The idea that anyone who reads a statement and won't take questions is covering something up? Maybe, but the fact that he doesn't speak English probably has a lot to do with why he didn't take questions on a hugely public matter with legal ramifications. Say the wrong thing and you screw yourself badly. If American reporters had questions, they would presumably be translated through an interpreter(!) into Japanese and then the interpreter would translate his answers back into English. I can see why he wouldn't want to publicly try to answer questions like that. (Even if eventually any confusion might get sorted out, if he says the wrong thing publicly on this, it could be a huge issue for him.)

And as for why he would let his translator access his bank accounts-- if he has accounts with American banks, why wouldn't his translator be the one dealing with it? Banks would probably make their own translators available to a super wealthy client like Ohtani, but why would he rather deal with an interpreter from a bank who he doesn't know, rather than just tell his most trusted friend to take care of whatever he wants done?

Being the translator for a super-rich guy in a country where very very few other people can communicate with him is a position that could really easily be exploited by someone looking to do so. "Yo, this text message from the bank in english is about the money for that condo you bought last week, just put your fingerprint on the button to approve it and I'll take care of everything else."

I'm not saying Ohtani is innocent or guilty of anything, just that his translator had to have a massive amount of influence over him, and that due to the language barrier, Ohtani's reaction to this isn't necessarily similar to how American stars would handle it.

This makes me curious about language barriers in the financial services spheres.

I know many banks in the US have English/Spanish options on their web-platforms, but otherwise, what would you do if you only spoke Haitian or Vietnamese? I would assume there are web-browser based translators that can overlay financial sites.

Is that not the case?

 

[mauf]

Isn’t it likely that Ohtani paid his friend’s gambling debts so his friend wouldn’t get his legs broken, then changed his story once his lawyers got involved and informed him that doing so was probably illegal and definitely violated MLB rules?

I wouldn’t be shocked if some/all of the bets were placed on Ohtani’s behalf, but I’d expect him to have a better cover story rehearsed if he was taking that kind of risk.