Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter claimed that the baseball player tried to pay his gambling debt

LOS ANGELES. New revelations regarding the case involving Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, have come to light following the release of a podcast series that features an unpublished interview in which he claimed that the Japanese star initially agreed to help him pay off a multi-million dollar gambling debt.

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According to the recording, Mizuhara recounted that he approached Ohtani when his debt to an illegal bookmaker became unsustainable. In the interview, he stated that the Dodgers player agreed to cover the amount and that he preferred to make the payment directly to prevent the money from being used for further betting.

However, less than 24 hours after those statements, Mizuhara retracted and acknowledged that he had lied. Shortly after, Ohtani’s lawyers reported that the baseball player had been the victim of a multi-million dollar fraud and the Dodgers fired the interpreter.

Subsequently, Mizuhara pleaded guilty to bank fraud and filing a false tax return, admitting that he stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani. He is currently serving a 57-month prison sentence.

The story is revisited in the six-episode series “The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani”, which also includes testimonies from federal investigators and people close to the case. According to one of the agents who participated in the investigation, no evidence was ever found that Ohtani was involved in sports betting, and the messages reviewed between the player and his former interpreter contained no references to that activity.

The case continues to be one of the biggest off-field scandals to surround a Major League Baseball figure in recent years, although U.S. authorities maintain that Shohei Ohtani acted as a victim of the fraud perpetrated by one of his closest collaborators.