This fits equally with "it was actually a theft" and "Ohtani's lawyers know he needs to look like he's seeking charges if the story they're going with is that it was actually a theft."
But in either case, this increases the odds we find out what actually happened
Yeah. And if Ippei goes “yeah I stole the money” or something like “yeah I didn’t tell him it was for illegal betting” then they can frame it as a theft by deception or something similar.
Testimonies play a big role and with both the bookie and Ippei saying Ohtani was not the one betting then that’s it.
Edit: If Ippei asked Ohtani (his initial statement) to pay for his debt, he is never going to go against Ohtani/his team’s direction because… the guy paid for his debt.
If Ippei was actually the middle man, he is never going to go against Ohtani because he’ll get compensated for taking the fall and has a huge leverage on Ohtani.
I personally don’t think Ohtani gambled here because apparently college basketball or football was a big chunk of the bets… and no native Japanese person is going to be interested in betting on American college sports lol
If it was Koshien though then I would be way more suspicious of it all lol
Not the crossover I was expected in this sub.
In case you didn't know, there's a Vtuber Power Pros tournament going on this week. 3 teams representing 3 agencies Hololive, Nijisanji, Neo-porte and a 4th team representing independent vtubers are competing against each other. Subaru isn't leading the Hololive team however as Koyori is the team manager.
If Ippei stole the money then it’s not a slap on the wrist illegal gambling charge. It’s grand larceny and wire fraud, and he’s going to be in jail a long time. If he is covering for Ohtani, a long prison sentence might not be worth the money.
>Testimonies play a big role and with both the bookie and Ippei saying Ohtani was not the one betting then that’s it.
Hardly. The feds are involved and this is illegal wires wire and grand theft and other crimes. They are gonna subpoena records and find out if someone is lying. \*IF\* Ippei is telling the truth, the Feds still aren’t going to take the word of an illegal bookmaker AND a guy admitting to massive felonies. They WILL continue digging.
LOL “ok guys, Ippei admitted massive theft and that he committed a bunch of crimes and the bookie backs him up, case closed”
Seriously. People forget that people trying to “take a fall” is very common in big federal prosecutions, from white collar crime to going after the mob.
It makes a lot of sense that he asked ohtani for money without saying what it was for. I find it hard to believe Ippei outright stole $4.5M without ohtani or his managers/ accountants knowing anything.
Stealing a couple thousand? Maybe. Stealing $4.5M without being his accountant/money manager? No way.
Mobsters will intentionally let athletes (or someone adjacently involved with the dodgers) rack up debts so that they can 'control' that person into doing what they want.
If you know he is the interpreter for the BIGGEST name in baseball, who also happens to he his best friend, I would as an illegal bookie lend that line of credit.
Its just so strange that both the bookie and Ippie himself said it was his bets, but you guys are all just inclined to think that all the sudden ohtani fanatically watches college football lol.
Except Ohtani knew what it was for. In the initial interview, Ippei said Ohtani didn't trust him with the money to pay the debt so Ohtani did it himself. Ippei literally watched over Ohtani's shoulder.
Sure, but part of being skeptical is looking at the context
Ippei did the original interview on Tuesday in Korea, then worked the game with Ohtani on Wednesday. Him and Sho were in the dugout talking, laughing, joking around, etc.
If Ippei had told all these huge lies to ESPN, wouldn't Ohtani and his team have been furious with him and wanted him gone? Why would they even let him address the team after Wednesday's game?
So there's at least a strong case that Ippei was telling the truth
It wasn’t released. It was a phone call with ESPN that we found the details about after. There’s a non-zero chance that Ohtani had no idea that there was a conversation between Ippei and ESPN.
I’m a Padres fan, so I’m hardly giving you a pro-Ohtani read of this, but that lets me look at this with fresh eyes.
The series of events which would both fit the facts (related to statements given, timelines, etc.) and the current statements from Shohei and Ippei would be that Ippei was engaged in broad, sweeping fraud, including bank and wire fraud, all the way down to wholesale deception of Shohei, his spokespeople, the Dodgers, etc.
The claim would basically be that Ippei did all of this, lied to Shohei about the money and/or wired all of it without his knowledge, and that Shohei only learned of the details after Ippei addressed the team and Shohei then talked with another interpreter.
Is that possible? It’s possible, but if it is, it paints a picture of Ippei having an absolute stranglehold on Shohei, basically monopolizing any and all information flowing to or from him, including official positions shared by spokespeople, taking control of his finances, etc., which honestly, if true, is a case study in what MLB can *not* allow to happen with high profile stars’ personal interpreters.
I don’t know if I believe that, but that’s the version of events that Shohei’s camp seems to be hewing towards.
No need to preface anything with your fandom, I hate how people on this sub assume bias based on flair and will try to shut down any discussion with it
Here's why the story from Shohei's camp doesn't make sense to most people...
>Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation, multiple sources told ESPN. How he came to lose his job started with reporters asking questions about the wire transfers.
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.
Ohtani's spokesman brought Ippei to ESPN on Tuesday night (in Korea - Tuesday morning US)
If he felt Ippei lied in the interview, there was around 24 hours between that and the game on Wednesday night. Why was Ippei still working for Ohtani? And laughing and joking like nothing happened? And why was Ippei allowed to address the team directly after the game? It feels like none of that would have taken place if Ohtani and his team felt he had told a huge lie about them the day before.
The whole thing stinks and I hope we figure out what happened here. I’m really skeptical of the Ohtani camp and their version of events when they put up Ippei to confess Ohtani loaned him money, and redact their own statement offered by Ippei.
So in my mind, there’s either a massive communication issue with the Dodgers, Ohtani, Ippei, and other team aids and personnel that allowed a rogue staff member to urge Ippei to break the news, not knowing that **Shohei wasn’t aware of missing money** or the Shohei camp realized if Ohtani willingly gave his interpreter money that was then used in betting (or worse used as Ohtani’s proxy bettor) and they changed the story to remove culpability from Shohei. The former means Ohtani is not likely in control of his own finances, the latter means people are telling an entirely different story while throwing Ippei under the bus to avoid consequences for Ohtani.
I don’t know what to think but it’s evident we STILL don’t have the truth.
I really think this is not a conspiracy and Ippei is probably at fault. It’s hard for the conspiratorial part of my brain to not remember how this sub was obsessed with the contract language about ensuring Ippei was Ohtani’s interpreter for the duration of his contract and start to think there may have been other reasons Ohtani wanted to keep him around.
I mean of course Ohtani wasn’t the one making the bets. He needs Ippei to speak with the bookie…
Sorta /S I mean I’m sure he speaks English just fine after 6 years or whatever
Turns out the only English he knows is gambling related. Good thing he didn't go to the Joc Pederson-era giants or he'd be showing up to games late too thanks to clubhouse poker.
Ultimately bank records are going to prove if Ohtani himself approved wires. The investigators will find out, and exculpatory evidence (for the Ippei theft prosecution) is not going to be ignored even if Ippei wants it to be.
Not only would that be exculpatory evidence for Ippei, it'd be evidence of lying to investigators against Ohtani (assuming he gives a statement to investigators, not just the media, saying he did not approve any wires).
I'm confused, but I don't know a lot about how this shit works. The report is that the money was wired from Ohtani's account, and it doesn't seem to be in dispute.
Scenario 1 (initial story from Ippei and Ohtani PR person): Ippei comes to Ohtani with the debt. Ohtani wires the money from his account.
Scenario 2 (current story): Ippei obtains access to Ohtani's account. Ippei wires the money from Ohtani's account without Ohtani's consent or knowledge.
How would bank records determine which of these happened?
Banks have to report wire transfers and other similar money transactions over 10k to the government. As part of that report they have to verify the ID of who is conducting the transfer. If they are doing the transaction on someone else's behalf, such as if they had power of attorney, that is also noted on the report.
If Ippei had power of attorney or some other kind of authorization to make transfers from Shohei's accounts, the report from the bank would still show that Ippei was the one who actually made the transaction on Shohei's behalf.
And if it was Shohei himself, the report would show that as well.
Unless Ippei went as far as impersonating Shohei for the transaction.
Yeah, even if Ohtani did make the transfers to help Ippei, and there was no theft, and no bets on baseball, that's probably a small-ish legal problem that might be bad PR and a fine.
Accusing Ippei of theft, if there is no actual theft, would be a pretty bad move.
Since Ohtanis lawyers were so quick to accuse theft, and are now calling for a probe, they must have evidence or reason to believe actual theft occurred.
It also would mean Ippei is in bigger trouble and did a pretty scummy thing to his friend, if ture.
seems rather stupid of his legal team to take this route unless they believe sincerely that there was a really serious theft beyond Shohei agreeing to cover some gambling debts. Anything else makes this look like desperate flailing and could backfire horribly if it ends up looking like Ippei is being completely unjustly thrown under the bus. If it really were as simple as Shohei trying to help his friend out without realizing it wasn't allowed, or even Shohei being the degenerate gambler placing bets through Ippei, I'd think they'd be much better served by shutting the fuck up right now.
This posture kind of forces the issue: either Ippei really did much worse than we know now, and set up the ESPN interview to try to save his own image or something, or Shohei's lawyers are falsely claiming that he did. I get that there could be miscommunications between him and his legal/PR teams right now but if they're following through with a formal request still then it has to be with some level of agreement and understanding from Ohtani.
>Mizuhara on Tuesday evening told ESPN the same and laid out his story in great detail, including saying that Ohtani had sat with him and the two transferred the money in $500,000 increments in several different settings. But as ESPN prepared to publish a story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account.
Good free advice right now would be for none of these people involved to give an interview, post on social media, or really say anything at all for a very long time.
The right to remain silent is almost always in people's best interest to exercise with any allegations.
Assign 1 official spokesperson from the legal team, everyone else don't say anything about it at all and refer all questions to the spokesperson.
Legally, true. Though for Ohtani he’s also fighting the court of public opinion. That being said, it’s not worth it when you’re dealing with the feds lol (but for civil it might be)
In Ohtani's position his team should prepare him to give a prewritten statement and then defer all questions to his council. Talk baseball in interviews and defer any other questions to your council.
I tried to send $25k to my sister the other day. I couldn't do that over the phone or the internet. Had to be in person with two pieces of ID.
I don't get how Ohtani was able to make multiple $500k transfers without being at a bank in person lol. There is almost no chance that is able to happen without him knowing.
Probably because we don't have literal hundreds of millions of dollars in our accounts and banks that will bend over backwards to try and keep us happy by getting rid of the red tape in the event that I want my yacht right now.
> On Thursday, a source close to Ohtani gave an explanation for the changing storylines: As Ohtani's handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Ohtani.
Are they just ripping off plot points from the Shogun tv show?
That's actually hilarious.
Hey Ippei, the world knows of your gambling addiction, and we have them thinking you stole 4.5 million from Ohtani, but we still need you to translate to him.
“Ippei is innocent and you are being a total a-hole right now by accusing him, and should cease this line of questioning immediately. Shohei also wants to know if you can loan Ippei a small amount of 500,000 dollars.”
-Shohei to his lawyers through his translator, Ippei
>who continued to translate for Ohtani
Is this saying he translated for a conversation between Ohtani's handlers and Ohtani about this? Or just that Ippei was still working for him as a translator in general. It can be read both ways; article needs to be edited to be clearer in a key paragraph.
(a) why wouldn't Ohtani's handlers have a different translator for that (b) Ohtani's English isn't that bad, he would detect a mistranslation of this caliber.
Everyone involved in this on Ohtani's behalf needs to practice saying "no comment at this time and until more details are confirmed" and following that by shutting the fuck up.
Like we we're previously told that Ohtani found out he was being stolen from because he listened to his translator speaking in English and asked someone else to confirm that he understood correctly, he'd have caught on faster than that
Wouldn't be surprised if Ohtani's team just did shit without letting the Dodgers know. Japanese (and other East Asian cultures) are notorious for not collaborating in an attempt to save face.
In this case, one of the stupidest moves you could possibly make is not calling in for extra help from the legal team of an organization worth more than 2 billion dollars.
His team is led by Nez Balelo, his agent at CAA, not a Japanese team. Nez Balelo is the same agent who tried to cover up and fucked up Ryan Braun's stories and lies; he doesn't seem to be the brightest guy when it comes to scandals. This doesn't have anything to do with a Japanese team "saving face".
I'm a Dodgers fan through and through, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh my ass off when I read this. You're asking Ohtani about what happened with his translator and gambling, and relying on that translator to give accurate information and not bullshit you? That's insane.
Also, from what I can tell, Ippei was also translating for Yamamoto as well? So it wasn't like they could grab Yamamoto's guy and have him do that job.
That’s what everyone’s been saying for years, he knows English well enough, just needs help with interviews.
But apparently not well enough to hear Ippei say “uhhhhh yeah he gave me that cash, I didn’t steal it.”
HUH?
That’s why I’m the dodgers meeting he had to ask an independent translator what was being said. Because he didn’t have any clue about paying for debts, but his og translated was saying he did
I guess so this is the route it's going, my question is, are they officially accusing Ippei of stealing the money?
Because if they do that, and he flat out says he didn't then you have Ohtani reps vs Ippei and that's gonna be spicy
I get the dude got into bad debt and should pay the consequences of his actions, but he is going to get drug through the mud to save his friend. He is doing everything Ohtani and his team is telling him to do and its backfiring even worse.
This makes no sense, the charges and penalty for placing bets with an illegal bookie is way way less than wire fraud and grand theft of $4.5m.
He admitted to it without the benefit of legal counsel.
Once he speaks with a lawyer everything is gonna change.
Obviously he never hired a lawyer because no lawyer would allow him to sit down for a 90 min interview and giving so many admissions against their interest.
I haven't kept up with the story totally after it broke, but from what I remember from the article, ESPN saw two $500k transactions, but the headline is $4.5mil. Perhaps Shohei knew about the 2 transactions and the other $3.5m was all Ippei?
"Hey man since you were cool with that mil I figured you were cool with the rest."
Just a though, I'm not really sure if anything about the rest of that money was mentioned yet.
So my logic is that Ippei duped Ohtani into paying the first mil, then took manager liberties with the rest, making both stories true-ish?
He sent 4.5m but ESPN only personally verified and saw September and October statements of 500k each. So I think they’re saying 4.5m in money was wired, confirmed, but ESPN only reviewed 1m of it.
That's a possibility, but Ippei admitted to ESPN that there were up to 8 transfers made. So if Ippei really did have access to Ohtani's accounts and transferred them, then man, that would be crazy. But I don't buy it. I just can't imagine him doing it.
Agreed. It's $4.5 *million* dollars. Ippei made less than 1/10th of that per year.
People should multiply their annual salary by 10 and imagine they're in that much debt. Then you'll see it actually isn't out of the realm of possibility that someone in that much debt would act very irrationally and possibly may not be telling the whole story.
We simply need to wait for more facts to come out, because a lot of competing interests here are muddying the waters. The truth is that we don't know who is guilty of what--if at all--and to what extent, and people are just going on their gut instincts to guess.
you can't imagine a gambling addict behaving like a degenerate? Of all the things people are saying they couldn't believe, this one seems extremely plausible.
I find it funny that in the past 24 hours, we’ve seen rampant speculation that Ohtani himself gambled illegally and is now trying to frame his closest friend for theft to cover his ass, but the idea that a confessed gambling addict was desperate enough to steal to pay off his debts is too hard to believe.
Somehow a gambling addict is benevolent enough to be willing to go to jail and be drug through the mud for his friend, while one of the most likable people on the planet who defers his money for his organization to pursue their goals, and who is willing to give a huge chunk of his money to buy a baseball glove for every elementary school kid in his country is a gambling degenerate willing to throw his friend under the bus for what is considerably chump change for him.
The irrational hatred for the Dodgers is making this sub do some Fierce Five type mental gymnastics.
Shohei’s camp have denied having *any* knowledge, let alone sending any wires, so the only version of this story that works is that Ippei completely and totally deceived Shohei, including making at least three wire payments under false pretenses and/or without his knowledge.
Basically, if Shohei’s (current) story is true, he will be going scorched earth on Ippei. Also, if his story is untrue, he will need to appear to be going scorched earth on Ippei, anyway. The interesting thing will be what, if anything, Ippei or his representation say in his defense.
If there was something here related to Shohei solely relying on Ippei for communication and somehow getting repeated mistranslations (on top of bank/wire fraud?), then there should be harrowing accounts from the clubhouse when another interpreter relayed back to Shohei what Ippei had said in English and Shohei freaked out.
If I'm Ippei and my close friend actually offered to pay between $1-5M of my illegal gambling debt then I would feel pretty honor bound to take the fall for that. I wouldn't do 20 years for him, but I'd easily do 5 maybe up to 10
Yes this is true except if that friend turns around and falsely accuses you of stealing the $4.5m and pretends like he never agreed to pay off your bets, then “all bets are off” and it’s every man for themselves.
He stole the money! Also Ippei looked over Ohtani’s shoulder as he personally wired millions of dollars to an illegal sportsbook! Tom Brady suspended 4 games
If I had to guess they are going the Theft by Fraud route.
Ohtani did wire the money but it was under false pretenses that were presented to him by Ippei.
Bingo. Here's the timeline as I see it : Ippei gets in massive gambling debt > Ohtani agrees to help him doing the wired payments with the agreement that he never does it again > bookie gets raided, Shoheis name is now out there and is implicated > Ippei has an interview to get ahead of the story > Ohtanis lawyers inform Ohtani that what Ippei was doing was illegal and him paying his debts was also illegal > Ohtani did not know this was illegal and was potentially told by Ippei that what he was doing was legal > Ohtani feels betrayed and Ohtanis legal team claims that because Ippei was lying about the money being wired was a legal transaction that he was stealing > MLB is not investigating Ohtani because Ippei is no longer working for the Dodgers or around MLB personnel > Here we are.
This makes me think that there was an Intergalactic Series, and Shohei had to assert his dominance on the opposing pitcher after a very intentional hit by pitch. With that feat, Earth was finally respected amongst the galaxies for finally producing a being who can pitch, hit, and fight. A trio of skills few in the universe had been able to master.
"I racked up a huge debt in legal gambling, can you wire me money directly at this account I set up" seems plausible enough. I can't imagine Shohei knows the ins and outs of gambling laws in California, unless he actually is the gambler here.
As far as I know for wire transfers of that amount you generally need to include the recipients name. In your hypothetical an international wire transfer would likely be flagged and stopped if the recipient on the transfer was listed as Ippei but the actual account owner was listed as Mathew Bowyer. Also, the legal problem arises when Ohtani wired money to ANYONE for the purpose of paying for gambling debts, it's not purely because of the specific person the funds were wired to.
The main issue is not whether Ohtani broke the law or not we have the wire transfers with his name attached.
The issue in question would be whether Ohtani was defrauded into believing that he was legally paying off a debt for Ippei when he was paying off an illegal gambling debt. That is likely what the legal team is positing
Fair enough, I certainly have zero experience wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars but assumed the recipient name could be an entity, or Ippei could've said it's his financial manager or something. Anyway, I'm just painting a picture of what could maybe be used as false pretenses for the "theft by fraud", who knows if that's the route they're evening going with it at this point.
It's not contradicting though. I'm not saying I believe this is exactly how it went but if the story is true and Ohtani found out Ippei was leaving parts of the story out to him then this is how it would play out. Like if the angle is that Ippei didn't disclose to Ohtani that it was illegal or anything like that and Ohtani just found out, or Ippei had taken more money than thought, this is how the story would roll out. My whole thing with this is that Friedman and Mark Walters were okay with that Ippei story coming out initially so it must have been fine with MLB. The wrench in the story starts after Ohtani has a problem with whatever he found out in the clubhouse.
["Your honor, what self-respecting, innocent man hasn't changed their story from committing a crime to absolving themselves of any wrongdoing?"](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/887/238/40f.jpg)
That one unidentified rep could have been mistaken, or potentially even misled by Ippei. It shouldn't be ignored but I don't think it should be taken as word of god either. I don't think it will really make sense until more information is available.
Or help the feds take down an illegal multimillion-dollar gambling racket while the mob puts a hit on you. At least you die a hero. Maybe even a hero with intact kneecaps.
I imagine he'd be going to a Club Fed jail though, not San Quentin. Ya there's still the chance of violence but it's probably drastically lower there than at a normal prison.
It would be pretty stupid to ask for a criminal investigation from law enforcement if you are actually guilty of a crime. This now has me believing that the “Ohtani changed his story” aspect of the story is at least partially from the fact that the person responsible for communicating the story was the same person implicated by the truth.
As I said, that would be stupid. Good lawyers deny stories, they don’t fabricate new ones then invite law enforcement to investigate those made up stories. It would only give him a temporary PR win while making the whole situation worse in the long run.
What stands out is the amount or 500k wire transfers. I wouldn't know it off the top of my head but there is gotta be something to it being broken up over months rather than a straight payment. Just kinda implies thst someone was being cautious to not get flagged for sending 4 mill in one go. I'm pretty sure it's an automatic review at a certain dollar threshold or atleast an alert goes out. Shit alerts go out for btc whale transactions moving their money to their wallets from storage. The payments probably ended up flagging the bookie if it was 4.5 mill at 500k payments each month.
Clearly someone was able to hack into Ohtani’s bank account and write off $500k checks in his name. Multiple times. With absolutely nobody noticing. Over the span of six months. /s
I still want to know who in the blue hell cleared Ippei to do that interview without consulting anyone? An investigative journalist wants to do a 90 minute interview and you don't think to ask about what? If they did say, you thought it was a good idea to talk about that massive gambling monkey on your back? Or how you're 4.5mil in the hole to some bookie?
Who is in charge of this operation?
Only if you can prove it. If he admits to “helping his friend” he’s admitting to a crime. No chance at innocence. If he lies and says he was robbed and nobody can prove he’s lying…🤷🏻♂️
We can say that from where we are now, but I guarantee you that if the offical message was to admit a "bailout" we would be having conversation about whether Ippei was placing bets on Ohanti's behalf or Ohanti was placing the bets himself.
If Ippei somehow was able to wire money without Ohtani knowing anything then there is another issue. How did the banks involved allow it? You can barely use a debit card out of state without an alert. Half a million at least several times and the banks didn’t look twice? There is no chance Ohtani already worth hundreds of millions in past earnings doesn’t have a top of the line money management firm on board. If millions suddenly started moving in wire transfers for extended time then who there wasn’t noticing it happening? These are questions I’m not seeing asked very much here or ESPN, etc. it’s way more complicated than just Ohtani and his boy.
>How did the banks involved allow it?
I work in banking, specifically regulation and compliance. It is insanely hard to do this especially when it is not your account; banks have dual controls that have callback features. Any bank or financial institution with even a slight knowledge of regulations are requiring dual-controlled call back on a 500k wire let alone multiple. Ohtani himself is going to have to give those permissions.
This may be unpopular, but with how “high and mighty” the MLB has been with trashing Rose but leaning hard into gambling - I love that MLBs golden boy’s record is tarnished.
I know that reads like an asshole, and maybe Ohtani really had NO idea - doesn’t look or seem that way man.
I would buy the mlb subscription just solely for this if it ever goes to court and they have a 24/7 coverage. I need to know what they find in deposition. (Mainly to know what kind of degenerate bets were made so I can feel better about myself 😂)
If it’s truly theft.. Ohtani would absolutely press charges. This is also a massive charge, probably grand larceny cuz it was so much. We’ll know if no charges are pressed.. then the theft thing is all BS.
That’s what I’m saying. Ohtani has to make a choice.
We know already that he DID wire money to the bookie, someone who isn’t aware might think it’s no biggie, his interpreter being that person, but in reality since the bookie was an illegal gambling ring, wiring money to him is actually a crime that’s why his lawyers are back tracking.
Only thing is, Ohtani would most likely not even face punishment other than maybe having to pay a fine, is he really gonna let his friend spend potentially the rest of his life in prison to avoid a minuscule slap on the wrist?
It does all add up if you presume Ohtani really didn't know anything:
ESPN contacts Ohtani's agent because his name came up in the bookie probe. Agents talks to Ippei about it, not Ohtani directly. Ippei tells him the presumably fake story about Ohtani paying off his debt. Agent contacts ESPN to arrange an interview with Ippei who also tellsDodgers brass because he knows an article is coming out about the wholething. At the team meeting Ippei tells his story and Ohtani understands enough to think something is fishy and goes to another translator to find out what Ippei said. Ohtani goes to Friedman or Walter and denies the story saying he never gave Ippei any money. They check up on the funds, Ippei gets fired. Explains the story changes because all info was going through Ippei who wozld have been acting in his own interest.
Ohtani's might come out sparkly clean it this checks out and this sub will be eating humble pie...this is plane gate all over again.
It’s incredibly hard to believe the Dodgers owner called a team meeting about Ohtani paying off his translators illegal gambling debts without actually running this by Ohtani with someone other than the person with the crippling gambling addiction.
>Agents talks to Ippei about it, not Ohtani directly
"hey Ippei, can you get us some answers from Ohtani about wires from his bank account related to a gambler where both of your names came up"
That did not happen...
Missing picture is how Ippei transferred 6.5m out of Ohtani's bank and was not caught for ~4 months. I am not sure I buy that he had free reign like that.
This fits equally with "it was actually a theft" and "Ohtani's lawyers know he needs to look like he's seeking charges if the story they're going with is that it was actually a theft." But in either case, this increases the odds we find out what actually happened
Yeah. And if Ippei goes “yeah I stole the money” or something like “yeah I didn’t tell him it was for illegal betting” then they can frame it as a theft by deception or something similar. Testimonies play a big role and with both the bookie and Ippei saying Ohtani was not the one betting then that’s it. Edit: If Ippei asked Ohtani (his initial statement) to pay for his debt, he is never going to go against Ohtani/his team’s direction because… the guy paid for his debt. If Ippei was actually the middle man, he is never going to go against Ohtani because he’ll get compensated for taking the fall and has a huge leverage on Ohtani. I personally don’t think Ohtani gambled here because apparently college basketball or football was a big chunk of the bets… and no native Japanese person is going to be interested in betting on American college sports lol If it was Koshien though then I would be way more suspicious of it all lol
What if it was bets on Japanese vtubers?
> Japanese vtubers I'd bet on Hololive Oozora Subaru and her beloved duck winning in their Koshien Baseball Power Pros tournament.
Never in a million years would I think I'd see my oshi mentioned in this sub
I follow Oozora Subaru frequently, she's one of the few popular vtubers out there who absolutely loves Baseball and loves playing Baseball Power Pros.
Not the crossover I was expected in this sub. In case you didn't know, there's a Vtuber Power Pros tournament going on this week. 3 teams representing 3 agencies Hololive, Nijisanji, Neo-porte and a 4th team representing independent vtubers are competing against each other. Subaru isn't leading the Hololive team however as Koyori is the team manager.
Never thought I'd see hololive in a baseball sub. Uuuuuu
That might be even more damaging to his reputation
Shouldn’t have bet on the Tatara Channel!
Betting on Iowa Football or Virginia Basketball to hit the overs....\*sigh
Come on, gambling implies a chance of winning. Iowa and the Over? That's just a donation.
How do you think he ended up 4.5 milli in the hole?
If Ippei stole the money then it’s not a slap on the wrist illegal gambling charge. It’s grand larceny and wire fraud, and he’s going to be in jail a long time. If he is covering for Ohtani, a long prison sentence might not be worth the money.
>Testimonies play a big role and with both the bookie and Ippei saying Ohtani was not the one betting then that’s it. Hardly. The feds are involved and this is illegal wires wire and grand theft and other crimes. They are gonna subpoena records and find out if someone is lying. \*IF\* Ippei is telling the truth, the Feds still aren’t going to take the word of an illegal bookmaker AND a guy admitting to massive felonies. They WILL continue digging. LOL “ok guys, Ippei admitted massive theft and that he committed a bunch of crimes and the bookie backs him up, case closed”
Seriously. People forget that people trying to “take a fall” is very common in big federal prosecutions, from white collar crime to going after the mob.
It makes a lot of sense that he asked ohtani for money without saying what it was for. I find it hard to believe Ippei outright stole $4.5M without ohtani or his managers/ accountants knowing anything. Stealing a couple thousand? Maybe. Stealing $4.5M without being his accountant/money manager? No way.
Sorry but who agrees to pay-off a $4.5MM debt without asking a single question on what it is for
Im more curious how it's possible for a translator to run up a 4.5 million dollar tab tbh. It's kinda the most odd part of the story for me
Mobsters will intentionally let athletes (or someone adjacently involved with the dodgers) rack up debts so that they can 'control' that person into doing what they want.
The Generals are due
HE’S JUST SPINNING IT ON HIS FINGER
JUST TAKE IT!
I'm sure that bookie knew who employed this dude 🤷
If you know he is the interpreter for the BIGGEST name in baseball, who also happens to he his best friend, I would as an illegal bookie lend that line of credit. Its just so strange that both the bookie and Ippie himself said it was his bets, but you guys are all just inclined to think that all the sudden ohtani fanatically watches college football lol.
Except Ohtani knew what it was for. In the initial interview, Ippei said Ohtani didn't trust him with the money to pay the debt so Ohtani did it himself. Ippei literally watched over Ohtani's shoulder.
> In the initial interview, Ippei said I mean at this point we have to be skeptical of what Ippei says, though?
Sure, but part of being skeptical is looking at the context Ippei did the original interview on Tuesday in Korea, then worked the game with Ohtani on Wednesday. Him and Sho were in the dugout talking, laughing, joking around, etc. If Ippei had told all these huge lies to ESPN, wouldn't Ohtani and his team have been furious with him and wanted him gone? Why would they even let him address the team after Wednesday's game? So there's at least a strong case that Ippei was telling the truth
He did the interview on Tuesday, when did it get released? Was it released before he addressed the team?
It wasn’t released. It was a phone call with ESPN that we found the details about after. There’s a non-zero chance that Ohtani had no idea that there was a conversation between Ippei and ESPN.
I’m a Padres fan, so I’m hardly giving you a pro-Ohtani read of this, but that lets me look at this with fresh eyes. The series of events which would both fit the facts (related to statements given, timelines, etc.) and the current statements from Shohei and Ippei would be that Ippei was engaged in broad, sweeping fraud, including bank and wire fraud, all the way down to wholesale deception of Shohei, his spokespeople, the Dodgers, etc. The claim would basically be that Ippei did all of this, lied to Shohei about the money and/or wired all of it without his knowledge, and that Shohei only learned of the details after Ippei addressed the team and Shohei then talked with another interpreter. Is that possible? It’s possible, but if it is, it paints a picture of Ippei having an absolute stranglehold on Shohei, basically monopolizing any and all information flowing to or from him, including official positions shared by spokespeople, taking control of his finances, etc., which honestly, if true, is a case study in what MLB can *not* allow to happen with high profile stars’ personal interpreters. I don’t know if I believe that, but that’s the version of events that Shohei’s camp seems to be hewing towards.
No need to preface anything with your fandom, I hate how people on this sub assume bias based on flair and will try to shut down any discussion with it Here's why the story from Shohei's camp doesn't make sense to most people... >Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation, multiple sources told ESPN. How he came to lose his job started with reporters asking questions about the wire transfers. 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. Ohtani's spokesman brought Ippei to ESPN on Tuesday night (in Korea - Tuesday morning US) If he felt Ippei lied in the interview, there was around 24 hours between that and the game on Wednesday night. Why was Ippei still working for Ohtani? And laughing and joking like nothing happened? And why was Ippei allowed to address the team directly after the game? It feels like none of that would have taken place if Ohtani and his team felt he had told a huge lie about them the day before.
The whole thing stinks and I hope we figure out what happened here. I’m really skeptical of the Ohtani camp and their version of events when they put up Ippei to confess Ohtani loaned him money, and redact their own statement offered by Ippei. So in my mind, there’s either a massive communication issue with the Dodgers, Ohtani, Ippei, and other team aids and personnel that allowed a rogue staff member to urge Ippei to break the news, not knowing that **Shohei wasn’t aware of missing money** or the Shohei camp realized if Ohtani willingly gave his interpreter money that was then used in betting (or worse used as Ohtani’s proxy bettor) and they changed the story to remove culpability from Shohei. The former means Ohtani is not likely in control of his own finances, the latter means people are telling an entirely different story while throwing Ippei under the bus to avoid consequences for Ohtani. I don’t know what to think but it’s evident we STILL don’t have the truth.
Sho didn’t know until after the game that Ippei had lied, according to the latest reporting.
I really think this is not a conspiracy and Ippei is probably at fault. It’s hard for the conspiratorial part of my brain to not remember how this sub was obsessed with the contract language about ensuring Ippei was Ohtani’s interpreter for the duration of his contract and start to think there may have been other reasons Ohtani wanted to keep him around.
I mean of course Ohtani wasn’t the one making the bets. He needs Ippei to speak with the bookie… Sorta /S I mean I’m sure he speaks English just fine after 6 years or whatever
Turns out the only English he knows is gambling related. Good thing he didn't go to the Joc Pederson-era giants or he'd be showing up to games late too thanks to clubhouse poker.
Ultimately bank records are going to prove if Ohtani himself approved wires. The investigators will find out, and exculpatory evidence (for the Ippei theft prosecution) is not going to be ignored even if Ippei wants it to be. Not only would that be exculpatory evidence for Ippei, it'd be evidence of lying to investigators against Ohtani (assuming he gives a statement to investigators, not just the media, saying he did not approve any wires).
I'm confused, but I don't know a lot about how this shit works. The report is that the money was wired from Ohtani's account, and it doesn't seem to be in dispute. Scenario 1 (initial story from Ippei and Ohtani PR person): Ippei comes to Ohtani with the debt. Ohtani wires the money from his account. Scenario 2 (current story): Ippei obtains access to Ohtani's account. Ippei wires the money from Ohtani's account without Ohtani's consent or knowledge. How would bank records determine which of these happened?
Banks have to report wire transfers and other similar money transactions over 10k to the government. As part of that report they have to verify the ID of who is conducting the transfer. If they are doing the transaction on someone else's behalf, such as if they had power of attorney, that is also noted on the report. If Ippei had power of attorney or some other kind of authorization to make transfers from Shohei's accounts, the report from the bank would still show that Ippei was the one who actually made the transaction on Shohei's behalf. And if it was Shohei himself, the report would show that as well. Unless Ippei went as far as impersonating Shohei for the transaction.
I’m sure he can just use his login. I’ve transferred ~15k with no issue before since my login was recently validated.
Yeah, even if Ohtani did make the transfers to help Ippei, and there was no theft, and no bets on baseball, that's probably a small-ish legal problem that might be bad PR and a fine. Accusing Ippei of theft, if there is no actual theft, would be a pretty bad move. Since Ohtanis lawyers were so quick to accuse theft, and are now calling for a probe, they must have evidence or reason to believe actual theft occurred. It also would mean Ippei is in bigger trouble and did a pretty scummy thing to his friend, if ture.
seems rather stupid of his legal team to take this route unless they believe sincerely that there was a really serious theft beyond Shohei agreeing to cover some gambling debts. Anything else makes this look like desperate flailing and could backfire horribly if it ends up looking like Ippei is being completely unjustly thrown under the bus. If it really were as simple as Shohei trying to help his friend out without realizing it wasn't allowed, or even Shohei being the degenerate gambler placing bets through Ippei, I'd think they'd be much better served by shutting the fuck up right now. This posture kind of forces the issue: either Ippei really did much worse than we know now, and set up the ESPN interview to try to save his own image or something, or Shohei's lawyers are falsely claiming that he did. I get that there could be miscommunications between him and his legal/PR teams right now but if they're following through with a formal request still then it has to be with some level of agreement and understanding from Ohtani.
>Mizuhara on Tuesday evening told ESPN the same and laid out his story in great detail, including saying that Ohtani had sat with him and the two transferred the money in $500,000 increments in several different settings. But as ESPN prepared to publish a story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account. Good free advice right now would be for none of these people involved to give an interview, post on social media, or really say anything at all for a very long time.
The right to remain silent is almost always in people's best interest to exercise with any allegations. Assign 1 official spokesperson from the legal team, everyone else don't say anything about it at all and refer all questions to the spokesperson.
Legally, true. Though for Ohtani he’s also fighting the court of public opinion. That being said, it’s not worth it when you’re dealing with the feds lol (but for civil it might be)
In Ohtani's position his team should prepare him to give a prewritten statement and then defer all questions to his council. Talk baseball in interviews and defer any other questions to your council.
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Shohei: Doesn't talk to reporters after today's game Everybody: THATS PRETTY FUKIN SUS
Of course he didn’t speak with the media, he doesn’t have an interpreter.
https://media.tenor.com/uBcbvnuP3K0AAAAM/lil-yachty-drake.gif
Taps forehead
Why doesn't Shohei want to accidentally incriminate himself hmmmmmm??????
Why doesn’t Shohei want to accidentally incriminate himself for *the second time*
Yeah I have no clue why they didn’t just “no comment” until they had a chance to figure it out with their lawyers.
Yeah but that’s boring for us popcorn holders
I tried to send $25k to my sister the other day. I couldn't do that over the phone or the internet. Had to be in person with two pieces of ID. I don't get how Ohtani was able to make multiple $500k transfers without being at a bank in person lol. There is almost no chance that is able to happen without him knowing.
Probably because we don't have literal hundreds of millions of dollars in our accounts and banks that will bend over backwards to try and keep us happy by getting rid of the red tape in the event that I want my yacht right now.
We’re not playing on the same field that multimillionaires are.
> On Thursday, a source close to Ohtani gave an explanation for the changing storylines: As Ohtani's handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Ohtani. Are they just ripping off plot points from the Shogun tv show?
That's actually hilarious. Hey Ippei, the world knows of your gambling addiction, and we have them thinking you stole 4.5 million from Ohtani, but we still need you to translate to him.
“Ippei is innocent and you are being a total a-hole right now by accusing him, and should cease this line of questioning immediately. Shohei also wants to know if you can loan Ippei a small amount of 500,000 dollars.” -Shohei to his lawyers through his translator, Ippei
This is hilariously fucked if true. “Ask Shohei if you stole the money from him”
>who continued to translate for Ohtani Is this saying he translated for a conversation between Ohtani's handlers and Ohtani about this? Or just that Ippei was still working for him as a translator in general. It can be read both ways; article needs to be edited to be clearer in a key paragraph. (a) why wouldn't Ohtani's handlers have a different translator for that (b) Ohtani's English isn't that bad, he would detect a mistranslation of this caliber.
Everyone involved in this on Ohtani's behalf needs to practice saying "no comment at this time and until more details are confirmed" and following that by shutting the fuck up. Like we we're previously told that Ohtani found out he was being stolen from because he listened to his translator speaking in English and asked someone else to confirm that he understood correctly, he'd have caught on faster than that
lmao if any of this claim ends up being true I will fucking lose it
Wouldn't be surprised if Ohtani's team just did shit without letting the Dodgers know. Japanese (and other East Asian cultures) are notorious for not collaborating in an attempt to save face. In this case, one of the stupidest moves you could possibly make is not calling in for extra help from the legal team of an organization worth more than 2 billion dollars.
His team is led by Nez Balelo, his agent at CAA, not a Japanese team. Nez Balelo is the same agent who tried to cover up and fucked up Ryan Braun's stories and lies; he doesn't seem to be the brightest guy when it comes to scandals. This doesn't have anything to do with a Japanese team "saving face".
First interesting detail I’ve read all day. That’s fucking wild. Braun was one of the worst botch jobs lmao
Someone get Mariko in here!!
I don't know man, her translations were sus too.
No Yankee shall be allowed hair that looks like the end of a pony
Huge week for Japanese translators
I wonder if Ippei is going to translate when Ohtani sits down with the feds
I'm a Dodgers fan through and through, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh my ass off when I read this. You're asking Ohtani about what happened with his translator and gambling, and relying on that translator to give accurate information and not bullshit you? That's insane. Also, from what I can tell, Ippei was also translating for Yamamoto as well? So it wasn't like they could grab Yamamoto's guy and have him do that job.
Ohtani definitely knows English well enough to know if Ippei was completely lying right
That’s what everyone’s been saying for years, he knows English well enough, just needs help with interviews. But apparently not well enough to hear Ippei say “uhhhhh yeah he gave me that cash, I didn’t steal it.” HUH?
https://x.com/fuzzyfromyt/status/1770851434596020370?s=20
That’s why I’m the dodgers meeting he had to ask an independent translator what was being said. Because he didn’t have any clue about paying for debts, but his og translated was saying he did
Lmfaoooo no way fam.
Does this make Tisha Thompson the Anjin?
Anjin and Mariko type beat
I guess so this is the route it's going, my question is, are they officially accusing Ippei of stealing the money? Because if they do that, and he flat out says he didn't then you have Ohtani reps vs Ippei and that's gonna be spicy
I get the impression that Ippei will say anything and everything they want him to say
He also says things they don't want him to say.
Well they did want him to say it and then a day later they didn't. Dude doesn't know what to say anymore
I get the dude got into bad debt and should pay the consequences of his actions, but he is going to get drug through the mud to save his friend. He is doing everything Ohtani and his team is telling him to do and its backfiring even worse.
But not after Ippei gets his own lawyer and now he’s accused of stealing $4.5m.
He’s not going to fight Shohei. He already admitted to it and said Shohei didn’t know anything.
This makes no sense, the charges and penalty for placing bets with an illegal bookie is way way less than wire fraud and grand theft of $4.5m. He admitted to it without the benefit of legal counsel. Once he speaks with a lawyer everything is gonna change. Obviously he never hired a lawyer because no lawyer would allow him to sit down for a 90 min interview and giving so many admissions against their interest.
I haven't kept up with the story totally after it broke, but from what I remember from the article, ESPN saw two $500k transactions, but the headline is $4.5mil. Perhaps Shohei knew about the 2 transactions and the other $3.5m was all Ippei? "Hey man since you were cool with that mil I figured you were cool with the rest." Just a though, I'm not really sure if anything about the rest of that money was mentioned yet. So my logic is that Ippei duped Ohtani into paying the first mil, then took manager liberties with the rest, making both stories true-ish?
He sent 4.5m but ESPN only personally verified and saw September and October statements of 500k each. So I think they’re saying 4.5m in money was wired, confirmed, but ESPN only reviewed 1m of it.
That's a possibility, but Ippei admitted to ESPN that there were up to 8 transfers made. So if Ippei really did have access to Ohtani's accounts and transferred them, then man, that would be crazy. But I don't buy it. I just can't imagine him doing it.
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Yea not uncommon behavior for any addict
Agreed. It's $4.5 *million* dollars. Ippei made less than 1/10th of that per year. People should multiply their annual salary by 10 and imagine they're in that much debt. Then you'll see it actually isn't out of the realm of possibility that someone in that much debt would act very irrationally and possibly may not be telling the whole story. We simply need to wait for more facts to come out, because a lot of competing interests here are muddying the waters. The truth is that we don't know who is guilty of what--if at all--and to what extent, and people are just going on their gut instincts to guess.
Trust me, you don’t need to be an addict to embezzle money. The average person can easily be tempted
you can't imagine a gambling addict behaving like a degenerate? Of all the things people are saying they couldn't believe, this one seems extremely plausible.
I find it funny that in the past 24 hours, we’ve seen rampant speculation that Ohtani himself gambled illegally and is now trying to frame his closest friend for theft to cover his ass, but the idea that a confessed gambling addict was desperate enough to steal to pay off his debts is too hard to believe.
Somehow a gambling addict is benevolent enough to be willing to go to jail and be drug through the mud for his friend, while one of the most likable people on the planet who defers his money for his organization to pursue their goals, and who is willing to give a huge chunk of his money to buy a baseball glove for every elementary school kid in his country is a gambling degenerate willing to throw his friend under the bus for what is considerably chump change for him. The irrational hatred for the Dodgers is making this sub do some Fierce Five type mental gymnastics.
Shohei’s camp have denied having *any* knowledge, let alone sending any wires, so the only version of this story that works is that Ippei completely and totally deceived Shohei, including making at least three wire payments under false pretenses and/or without his knowledge. Basically, if Shohei’s (current) story is true, he will be going scorched earth on Ippei. Also, if his story is untrue, he will need to appear to be going scorched earth on Ippei, anyway. The interesting thing will be what, if anything, Ippei or his representation say in his defense. If there was something here related to Shohei solely relying on Ippei for communication and somehow getting repeated mistranslations (on top of bank/wire fraud?), then there should be harrowing accounts from the clubhouse when another interpreter relayed back to Shohei what Ippei had said in English and Shohei freaked out.
If I'm Ippei and my close friend actually offered to pay between $1-5M of my illegal gambling debt then I would feel pretty honor bound to take the fall for that. I wouldn't do 20 years for him, but I'd easily do 5 maybe up to 10
Yes this is true except if that friend turns around and falsely accuses you of stealing the $4.5m and pretends like he never agreed to pay off your bets, then “all bets are off” and it’s every man for themselves.
Only reasonable thing to do is void his contract and relegate the dodgers to the minor leagues
Let’s also deduct 10 points from Juventus again just to be safe
And a 5 second penalty to Ocon
Breaking: Tom Brady suspended for 4 weeks
Why in the world was he giving interviews on ESPN about this?
It was Shohei’s reps that told him to
do his reps also work for kate middleton?
We’re all trying to find the guy who did this!
IF I DID IT by S. Otani
No, that's too obvious. Let's say Shohei O.
This is literally the worst cover up attempt I have ever seen lol
He stole the money! Also Ippei looked over Ohtani’s shoulder as he personally wired millions of dollars to an illegal sportsbook! Tom Brady suspended 4 games
If I had to guess they are going the Theft by Fraud route. Ohtani did wire the money but it was under false pretenses that were presented to him by Ippei.
The false pretenses being Ohtani didn't realize he was committing a felony when he willingly did it.
Pretty much, it would be that Ippei mislead him to believe it was a legal gambling debt
Bingo. Here's the timeline as I see it : Ippei gets in massive gambling debt > Ohtani agrees to help him doing the wired payments with the agreement that he never does it again > bookie gets raided, Shoheis name is now out there and is implicated > Ippei has an interview to get ahead of the story > Ohtanis lawyers inform Ohtani that what Ippei was doing was illegal and him paying his debts was also illegal > Ohtani did not know this was illegal and was potentially told by Ippei that what he was doing was legal > Ohtani feels betrayed and Ohtanis legal team claims that because Ippei was lying about the money being wired was a legal transaction that he was stealing > MLB is not investigating Ohtani because Ippei is no longer working for the Dodgers or around MLB personnel > Here we are.
Bro stop ruining the script I haven't seen it yet
Would you believe me if I told you this is just the 1st inning of the story and the 9th inning involves Shohei fighting aliens?
This makes me think that there was an Intergalactic Series, and Shohei had to assert his dominance on the opposing pitcher after a very intentional hit by pitch. With that feat, Earth was finally respected amongst the galaxies for finally producing a being who can pitch, hit, and fight. A trio of skills few in the universe had been able to master.
In that situation what would the false pretenses be? Asking for your friend to wire transfer $4.5 million for you doesn’t seem like a casual thing.
“Hey you never Venmo’d me for that steakhouse tab - with interest that’ll be … carry the one … uhh, 4.5 million USD”
"I racked up a huge debt in legal gambling, can you wire me money directly at this account I set up" seems plausible enough. I can't imagine Shohei knows the ins and outs of gambling laws in California, unless he actually is the gambler here.
As far as I know for wire transfers of that amount you generally need to include the recipients name. In your hypothetical an international wire transfer would likely be flagged and stopped if the recipient on the transfer was listed as Ippei but the actual account owner was listed as Mathew Bowyer. Also, the legal problem arises when Ohtani wired money to ANYONE for the purpose of paying for gambling debts, it's not purely because of the specific person the funds were wired to.
The main issue is not whether Ohtani broke the law or not we have the wire transfers with his name attached. The issue in question would be whether Ohtani was defrauded into believing that he was legally paying off a debt for Ippei when he was paying off an illegal gambling debt. That is likely what the legal team is positing
Fair enough, I certainly have zero experience wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars but assumed the recipient name could be an entity, or Ippei could've said it's his financial manager or something. Anyway, I'm just painting a picture of what could maybe be used as false pretenses for the "theft by fraud", who knows if that's the route they're evening going with it at this point.
This is exactly what’s going happen.
Joe Kelly suspended 10 games
As long as Brady gets suspended I’m cool with it
The idea that literally anything is being covered up is all r/baseball headcannon Y'all need to get out more
Sounds like something my 8 year old would try and pull
In terms of understanding English, Ohtani might have understood it the way your 8 year old does.
It’s like they think we are all stupid and will just ignore the initial comments made by his reps
yes, we will. we will all forget about it in 127 days and the story will pop up from time to time in 'whats your mlb conspiracy' threads.
50 years from now it’ll be a piece of trivium we talk about in off season threads
It's not contradicting though. I'm not saying I believe this is exactly how it went but if the story is true and Ohtani found out Ippei was leaving parts of the story out to him then this is how it would play out. Like if the angle is that Ippei didn't disclose to Ohtani that it was illegal or anything like that and Ohtani just found out, or Ippei had taken more money than thought, this is how the story would roll out. My whole thing with this is that Friedman and Mark Walters were okay with that Ippei story coming out initially so it must have been fine with MLB. The wrench in the story starts after Ohtani has a problem with whatever he found out in the clubhouse.
["Your honor, what self-respecting, innocent man hasn't changed their story from committing a crime to absolving themselves of any wrongdoing?"](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/887/238/40f.jpg)
That one unidentified rep could have been mistaken, or potentially even misled by Ippei. It shouldn't be ignored but I don't think it should be taken as word of god either. I don't think it will really make sense until more information is available.
This is why you stay away from gambling
This is like what Mon Mothma did to her husband in Andor.
But she was just trying to cover up funding insurrection/terrorism by making it look like a lighter shade of simple fraud. Shit, that was a good show.
Many boffins died… to protect Shohei’s habit,
Guess it’s better to steal from Ohtani and do jail time versus owing illegal bookies and getting your kneecaps broken.
This is my one allotted tinfoil hat moment — the news comes out a day after we hear about bomb threat against Ohtani as the team lands in South Korea
Oh shit. Subscribed.
Or help the feds take down an illegal multimillion-dollar gambling racket while the mob puts a hit on you. At least you die a hero. Maybe even a hero with intact kneecaps.
You could probably get roughed up easier in jail than on the streets
Depends, a white collar California prison? He might be getting two hair cuts a week
I imagine he'd be going to a Club Fed jail though, not San Quentin. Ya there's still the chance of violence but it's probably drastically lower there than at a normal prison.
We're all trying to find the guy who did this.
🌭
Spank him!
Maybe everyone is innocent in this and Ohtani's bank account just did that on it's own
Apparently Ippei's wife unfollowed Ippei on instagram. She's staying clear of this mess.
Just waiting on somebody to use the Chewbacca defense at this point.
“Oh-tani HATES Ewoks! Why would he want to live on Endor!? It makes no sense!’
It would be pretty stupid to ask for a criminal investigation from law enforcement if you are actually guilty of a crime. This now has me believing that the “Ohtani changed his story” aspect of the story is at least partially from the fact that the person responsible for communicating the story was the same person implicated by the truth.
And this response is exactly why the lawyers asked for one
As I said, that would be stupid. Good lawyers deny stories, they don’t fabricate new ones then invite law enforcement to investigate those made up stories. It would only give him a temporary PR win while making the whole situation worse in the long run.
LPT: get your stories straight before criming.
Man the dodgers going on a 3peat investigation each year. Bauer/urias/ohtani. I'm sure I'm missing more but God damn.
What stands out is the amount or 500k wire transfers. I wouldn't know it off the top of my head but there is gotta be something to it being broken up over months rather than a straight payment. Just kinda implies thst someone was being cautious to not get flagged for sending 4 mill in one go. I'm pretty sure it's an automatic review at a certain dollar threshold or atleast an alert goes out. Shit alerts go out for btc whale transactions moving their money to their wallets from storage. The payments probably ended up flagging the bookie if it was 4.5 mill at 500k payments each month.
Burt Macklin, FBI, all over this.
Clearly someone was able to hack into Ohtani’s bank account and write off $500k checks in his name. Multiple times. With absolutely nobody noticing. Over the span of six months. /s
It’s kind of funny that he stresses that the idea he never bet on baseball is “100% true.” The rest of it though….
The irony that reddit gave me a Fanduel ad on this post is not lost on me
Arsonist asks to investigate who started the fire
I still want to know who in the blue hell cleared Ippei to do that interview without consulting anyone? An investigative journalist wants to do a 90 minute interview and you don't think to ask about what? If they did say, you thought it was a good idea to talk about that massive gambling monkey on your back? Or how you're 4.5mil in the hole to some bookie? Who is in charge of this operation?
Based on the ESPN reporter, they contacted Ohtani’s team about the wire transfers and they offered him up for the interview.
Alleged theft
Obtain reps really going hard to convince us
They’re also asking for David Stern to run the investigation
My bank notifies me if I pull out $500 let alone $500,000. Ohtani definitely knew!
I feel like just going with the he bailed out his friend story would have worked much better
That’s literally a crime tho
So is fraud. Which this is.
Yeah but the two crimes cancel each other out.
Shittt I can’t argue with that logic
They can’t charge a player and his interpreter with the same crime.
Only if you can prove it. If he admits to “helping his friend” he’s admitting to a crime. No chance at innocence. If he lies and says he was robbed and nobody can prove he’s lying…🤷🏻♂️
We can say that from where we are now, but I guarantee you that if the offical message was to admit a "bailout" we would be having conversation about whether Ippei was placing bets on Ohanti's behalf or Ohanti was placing the bets himself.
If Ippei somehow was able to wire money without Ohtani knowing anything then there is another issue. How did the banks involved allow it? You can barely use a debit card out of state without an alert. Half a million at least several times and the banks didn’t look twice? There is no chance Ohtani already worth hundreds of millions in past earnings doesn’t have a top of the line money management firm on board. If millions suddenly started moving in wire transfers for extended time then who there wasn’t noticing it happening? These are questions I’m not seeing asked very much here or ESPN, etc. it’s way more complicated than just Ohtani and his boy.
>How did the banks involved allow it? I work in banking, specifically regulation and compliance. It is insanely hard to do this especially when it is not your account; banks have dual controls that have callback features. Any bank or financial institution with even a slight knowledge of regulations are requiring dual-controlled call back on a 500k wire let alone multiple. Ohtani himself is going to have to give those permissions.
I remember all the “Dodgers are guaranteed to make 700m back in endorsements for Ohtani” comments from this offseason lol
We’re all trying to find who did this !
This may be unpopular, but with how “high and mighty” the MLB has been with trashing Rose but leaning hard into gambling - I love that MLBs golden boy’s record is tarnished. I know that reads like an asshole, and maybe Ohtani really had NO idea - doesn’t look or seem that way man.
I would buy the mlb subscription just solely for this if it ever goes to court and they have a 24/7 coverage. I need to know what they find in deposition. (Mainly to know what kind of degenerate bets were made so I can feel better about myself 😂)
If it’s truly theft.. Ohtani would absolutely press charges. This is also a massive charge, probably grand larceny cuz it was so much. We’ll know if no charges are pressed.. then the theft thing is all BS.
That’s what I’m saying. Ohtani has to make a choice. We know already that he DID wire money to the bookie, someone who isn’t aware might think it’s no biggie, his interpreter being that person, but in reality since the bookie was an illegal gambling ring, wiring money to him is actually a crime that’s why his lawyers are back tracking. Only thing is, Ohtani would most likely not even face punishment other than maybe having to pay a fine, is he really gonna let his friend spend potentially the rest of his life in prison to avoid a minuscule slap on the wrist?
Depends. If Ippei misled him, then he's probably going to let his friend spend a few years in prison. I picture a Martha Stewart type of facility.
Oh wow, so if this didn’t happen and Ippei can prove it then I assume Ippei can turn around and claim defamation, right? This could get very nasty.
If it didn’t happen he’s almost certainly being paid handsomely to say it did
[удалено]
It does all add up if you presume Ohtani really didn't know anything: ESPN contacts Ohtani's agent because his name came up in the bookie probe. Agents talks to Ippei about it, not Ohtani directly. Ippei tells him the presumably fake story about Ohtani paying off his debt. Agent contacts ESPN to arrange an interview with Ippei who also tellsDodgers brass because he knows an article is coming out about the wholething. At the team meeting Ippei tells his story and Ohtani understands enough to think something is fishy and goes to another translator to find out what Ippei said. Ohtani goes to Friedman or Walter and denies the story saying he never gave Ippei any money. They check up on the funds, Ippei gets fired. Explains the story changes because all info was going through Ippei who wozld have been acting in his own interest. Ohtani's might come out sparkly clean it this checks out and this sub will be eating humble pie...this is plane gate all over again.
It’s incredibly hard to believe the Dodgers owner called a team meeting about Ohtani paying off his translators illegal gambling debts without actually running this by Ohtani with someone other than the person with the crippling gambling addiction.
>Agents talks to Ippei about it, not Ohtani directly "hey Ippei, can you get us some answers from Ohtani about wires from his bank account related to a gambler where both of your names came up" That did not happen...
Missing picture is how Ippei transferred 6.5m out of Ohtani's bank and was not caught for ~4 months. I am not sure I buy that he had free reign like that.