Several months after revealing to Dodgers players that he orchestrated a brazen scheme to steal funds from star outfielder Shohei Ohtani, Ippei Mizuhara broke his silence on Tuesday.
Mizuhara, a former interpreter of Ohtani, pleaded guilty in Southern California to one count of bank fraud and one count of filing a false tax return in connection with the multi-million dollar scheme. A close confidant of Ohtani, Mizuhara is accused of stealing approximately $17 million from the MLB star to wager on sports and repay considerable debts with an illegal California bookmaker.
Federal prosecutors accused Mizuhara of stealing millions from Ohtani's Arizona bank account, an account the interpreter illegally accessed without Ohtani’s knowledge. At one point, Mizuhara used Ohtani's password to successfully sign into the bank account and then modified the account's security protocols without Ohtani's knowledge or permission, prosecutors allege.
Appearing before Federal Magistrate John Holcomb, Mizuhara admitted to stealing from Ohtani, an individual identified in court records as “Victim A.”