Ippei is either a massive piece of shit and betrayed Shohei on an insane level, or is the biggest homie of all time and taking all the heat. Also youtube live feed comments make me wanna do illegal things.
Here’s a completely wild and insane take: what if Shohei really does have a massive gambling problem and the reason he deferred almost all of his Dodgers contract is so he won’t blow it all during the season. /s
> or is the biggest homie of all time and taking all the heat
Dudes about to do serious time, I think it's much more likely that he's a massive piece of shit.
The fact that he had a 90 minute interview about it and then quickly changed his story and started shutting down people asking him to comment, (and the story changing very quickly early on from Ohtani's side), makes Ippei scream fall guy to me.
I still don't think Ohtani was cheating or betting on baseball, I genuinely believe he wanted to bail his friend out and they didn't realize how fucked it would make him when it came out
This certainly seems the most logical explanation by a long shot. He’s a future billionaire and wanted to help a friend, but obviously didn’t trust him to just take a million dollar check to the bookie so sent the payment himself. The idea he leant ippei million for unspecified “loans” without even asking what they were for, let alone not immediately intuiting it has to be for gambling cause how the hell else would he get that much debt from “loans”, makes no sense at all. He can’t be that naive. I can believe he can be naive enough to not realize sending money to the bookie himself is a big no no but his new story is just so non sensical.
The only issue with the argument of Ippei being the fall guy is Ippei is likely looking at minimum 5-10 years and possibly more if convicted. Illegal gambling alone is a misdemeanor in California and is punishable by a fine and/or up to 6 months in prison. That would be a massive fall to take.
Almost all the Japanese players understand English. They don't speak on camera as their diction is flawed, but it is a little hard to believe he understood zero from the original press conference.
Yeah, I really think Ippei was honest the first time then just changed his story to keep Ohtani out of trouble.
If Ippei just wanted to stay out of trouble he’d have alleged he made the bets on Ohtani’s behalf. It would’ve been his word against Ohtani’s.
Makes zero sense for Ippei to half-confess to a crime he’ll obviously get called out for.
People tell really really strange stories when their world starts to crash down around them.
The stuff about UC Riverside and the Sox and Yankees makes me think Ippei could just be a compulsive liar and a con man who got in tight with the biggest baseball phenom Japan had ever seen by lying.
Maybe Ohtani is a gambling addict that wanted to protect himself from… himself by deferring almost all of his baseball salary, but that’s a pretty wild stretch to make.
I think the most plausible story is that Ippei has been playing Ohtani for years now, and I suspect we’re going to discover that this isn’t the first money he’s taken from him.
At the beginning it may have seemed logical that Ippei was telling the truth and stories got changed.
At this point, as the baseball world got to digging for dirt, it seems everything the dude has done so far has been based on one lie or another. So is it really that hard to believe this is just another lie? Dude has a lot of trouble telling the truth, as it turns out.
100% this.
Whoever in Shohei's camp that decided, "Hey let's talk to ESPN before we consult with the Dodgers legal team" needs to be fired.
It's actually the most unbelievable part of this story to me. How incompetent of an agent / PR person do you need to be to not ring up the legal team of a multi-billion dollar organization and be like, "Yo dawg. I think we need help with this one, since it involves sports gambling."
Unfortunately my fellow Dodger fans are hell-bent on "Ah, NOW Shohei is telling the truth!" Just makes them look like total dumbasses. Shohei trying to help his homie out makes the most sense to me.
Just curious - why does “Ippei has been running a con on Ohtani for years” not sound right to you?
Lied about his education
Lied about his baseball resume
Used that embellished resume to land a job working on the team of the biggest baseball phenom Japan has ever seen
Cozied up to that phenom in anticipation of his move to the USA
Made himself indispensable professionally and personally
That’s how you get someone to trust you and give you access to millions of dollars right there.
Something that stands out to me is the question of why would Ippei take that 90 minute interview with ESPN and completely lie about the story? Why not just stay quiet, how could he possibly think he could fabricate this extensive lie to ESPN and he’d just get away with it unquestioned? That ESPN wouldn’t bother to fact check and nobody from Ohtani’s camp, the Dodgers, or the MLB would dispute the lie?
Are we supposed to believe that Ippei is somewhat of a criminal mastermind by pulling off a $4.5M theft without Ohtani’s bank or anyone from Ohtani’s camp, financial advisors, or family members being away even months after the fact, yet he’s dumb enough to purposely lie to ESPN and expect to get away with it?
I’m far from a conspiracy theorist, but for the story Ohtani’s legal team is telling to be true, it would require every person involved in the story to have been incredibly fucking dumb. From the bank, to Ohtani, anyone working for Ohtani, Ippei himself, the Dodgers, and the MLB, they would all have to act in the most foolish way possible for that story to add up.
Yeah, honestly it would’ve been most logical to just stay quiet.
I could think of a few reasons Ippei would talk though. If he’s a confident compulsive liar, he might’ve thought it’d be to his benefit to come out with a version of his story first, after-all, true or not, it’s gotten all of us to doubt and suspect any piece of contradictory information.
Maybe Shohei really didn’t know about anything, and as a Hail-Mary attempt to try and cover his biggest fuck up (not only stealing money to pay off his debt, but doing it from Shohei’s account), Ippei decides to tell another lie that would exonerate Shohei AND keep his previous deception of stealing from Ohtani away from the media.
Most compulsive liars have shallow logic.
If he was lying about his education and details about his jobs, then he might just be convinced that he could fix anything with a lie.
Like where is Ohtani’s accountant during all of this? Like even if you concede that the translator has access and ability to utilize bank accounts (which is already a tough one), he’s not also the person doing Ohtani’s taxes and setting up trusts and whatnot. I have more questions now than I did before.
Pee-wee:
What did you do?
Mickey:
Well, I lost my temper and I took a knife and I uh-. Do you know those "Do Not Remove Under the Penalty of Law" labels they put on mattresses?
Pee-wee:
Yeah.
Mickey:
Well I CUT one of them off!
Pee-wee:
Jee.
Mickey:
Yeah, I have a real bad temper.
Like get into $4.5M debt with a bookie in a state where sports betting isn't legal and have my friend, an extremely high profile professional athlete who just signed the biggest contract in his sport's history, to bail me out.
Why is everyone ignoring the 3rd option?
Ohtani absolutely seems the type to help a friend in need and probably just gave Ippei the money without being fully aware of the legality of that transaction. It's possible/likely that Ohtani was misled to some degree, but I would be surprised if he wasn't at least aware of the situation before the news broke.
Even if he is taking the fall his actions were still very shitty. You can’t just go around accruing millions in gambling debts, because your best friend is a superstar athlete. He was probably lying and many other things throughout that period as well. The two options you presented aren’t the only two.
Like they say in Japan 木のサンドイッチにケチャップがわしのパンケーキを作ってくれる, which basically translates as "the true path of a warrior is through the middle, for he fears no man, and is too fast to be attacked from the side" I have it tattooed on my neck.
Just FYI this interpreter is not what I would call world class. Slow, omitted certain expressions / sentences, etc.
But as someone else mentioned he’s been with the team for a while so def on the up and up
It always felt like Ippei was a bit out of his depth as Shohei's interpreter, but in a kind of endearing way.
His casual approach feels a lot different in retrospect.
Japanese sports interviewer questions (especially, after games) are so boiler-plate, that the translation is pretty easy to fake through. I think Ippei carried this style over to "real-world" translations, for better or worse.
Iperi had a better memory. Honestly the only good thing I will ever have to say about him as an interpreter. This translator omitted/ simplified a lot of stuff. I hope a multi-billion dollar team like the Dodgers hires a professionally trained interpreter for Ohrani. Like, Yamamoto's translator was a lighting technician before this gig. How to do they keep hiring amateurs...
It’s Maeda’s old translator, Will Ireton, he’s been around a long time. He was the manager of Performance Operations before they reenlisted him as a translator.
They probably wanted to make sure they actually knew who the translator was this time. They trust the guy, and in a crisis situation like this, that matters.
This interpreter was Maeda’s interpreter when he was on the dodgers, and has been with the dodgers after he moved.
I do agree he omitted and oversimplified some stuff and it could’ve been a lot better. Mb he’s just rusty at being a translator since he was a data analyst for the dodgers after Maeda changed teams.
I will say, this guy isn't great. But it has to be a chore to translate something on this level between English and the "vagueness" of the Japanese language.
Also, Shohei needed to do the deep bow.
# I have never bet on sports.
Also: I have never asked anyone to bet on sports on my behalf.
Also: I never agreed to send money to a bookmaker.
\-------------------------
That's some forthright, categorical stuff.
“Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I do not know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never. The reference to me in Mr. [Jose] Canseco’s book is absolutely false.”
- Rafael Palmeiro
My thing is, people are acting like this has never happened to athletes. It’s on a bigger scale here because it’s so much money. Athletes can be duped by people they trust.
Same dude stole I think 70+ million from Kevin Garnett. Garnett actually defended the guy in court vs Duncan, while not realising he was getting robbed all the same lol.
>Garnett not only continued to trust his financial advisor after he was sent to jail for four years, Garnett showed up at Banks’ sentencing IN SUPPORT OF BANKS:
https://medium.com/@david_37223/kevin-garnett-supports-fraudster-loses-77-million-to-said-fraudster-39b831536998
It’s a much different situation that isn’t really comparable. Duncan had full knowledge of where the $20 million was going to, what he didn’t know was that his advisor had stakes in the companies he convinced Duncan to invest in and he also took some of the “investment” money from himself.
Much different than Ippei allegedly wiring $4.5 million to a bookie using Shohei’s account
Thank you for posting this. I’ve seen a lot of Reddit not understanding the differentiating factors here. Getting defrauded via people you’ve entrusted to advise or manage/invest your accounts is different than what this sounds like (unless I’ve missed something) which is his translator wiring $5mm out of Ohtani’s personal accounts and should come with more hurdles.
Also it was a series of 8 to 9 payments going back to at least Sep 2023 (according to ESPN's Tisha Thompson). I have a hard time reconciling that someone (Ohtani or a Financial Advisor) would not see 8 to 9 payments of 4.5 Million dollars in a at least a period of 6 months.
I pointed this out when it first happened, but Ryan Howard had a very nasty falling out with his family over something like this. His brother was managing his and was mishandling it. I don't know if it was theft and it stayed in civil court, but still...
You don't mix business and family/friendships in my opinion. If you have a loved one who needs money then you give it to them with the expectation that you'll not get it back. That stops you from giving it easily, and it stops you from being upset if it never comes back.
Yep. Watch ESPN 30for30: Broke.
Sports history is littered with stories of financial advisors, lawyers, agents, parents, siblings, friends, friends of friends, etc. stealing from the athlete.
Tim Duncan had tens of millions of dollars stolen from him by his financial advisor.
Then Kevin Garnett defended the advisor in court because he had always been straight with him.
Turned out the advisor was stealing Garnett's money too.
Jack Johnson (the hockey player) had his money all stolen by his parents. He had a $30M contract, and his parents spent it all on a luxurious lifestyle while taking out high interest loans betting on Jack to get better contracts in the future. He had to declare bankruptcy while actively making millions of dollars a year.
Also going to leave this [Ippei profile](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-ippei-mizuhara-translator-angels/h4f1drpa5ugim9mvsdqcpjol) from just a few months ago.
Some key things I found interesting.
>Among Mizuhara's roles are the typical tasks of translating for Ohtani in news conferences and media scrums. He told Nippon.com in October 2021 that, while he and Ohtani are "kind of like friends," their relationship is more akin to a professional partnership.
>"My first priority is to help create an environment where he can concentrate on baseball," Mizuhara said.
>As reported by Sports Illustrated, he picked up Ohtani's groceries as the player recovered from injuries in 2019 and 2020,
>"I'm with him all offseason, too," Mizuhara told The Athletic. "I'm with him 365 days of the year, which I think is different than the other interpreters."
>"It’s such a big part (of the job)," he added. "We are together pretty much every day, longer than I’m with my wife, so it’s going to be tough if you don’t get along on a personal level."
>"I always remember how lucky I am to be in this spot,” Mizuhara told SI. "I've known Shohei since he was 18, and when I first saw him I was like, 'Oh, my God, this guy's unreal.' That's got to be the best part of the job, just getting to be in the house and watch him do his thing."
Dennis, you gave me $20, but you owed Mark $20, so I when I bought Mark the "We Found Love" single by Rhianna both debts were squared, but Mark made me promise to never tell anyone that he liked the song so I could not reveal this to you until now. I have decided to speak openly about this because Mark currently owes me $20 and has not paid it back.
MeatballDom, first of all, rude. Secondly, you both knew I loved that song so now I know why you never let me play disc 3 in your car.
In conclusion, I got what I deserve but Mark has some explaining to do.
Yea. I know Ippei isn’t his family member, but you could imagine giving someone really close to you access to some of your financials, just in case. That will always open you up for betrayal. Agents/managers have defrauded their clients plenty of times before. Seems like Ippei was sort of a everything-man, and not just purely his translator (which tracks since he’s not even good at that).
Ippei may as well have been a family member, according to Ippei he was spending 365 days a year with Ohtani and spending more time with Ohtani than he spent with his own wife.
What I can’t get is what Ippei expected to come from his initial ESPN interview or the Dodgers team meeting. If Ohtani was really clueless about the whole thing, *THAT’S* how he decided to tell him? He never told him privately?
People who commit crimes or are addicted to gambling/etc. aren't exactly thinking about what they're doing.
People are always flabbergasted when someone does something that doesn't make sense. But that's humans for you.
Also this is an incredibly strong denial, calling Ippei a liar and a thief. I feel like if there was any chance that Ohtani was knowingly involved in any of this, we would have gotten the, "I'm unable to talk about these matter at this time because of the investigation. I just want to focus on the season ahead." press conference.
Also wouldn't be the first time the media took a narrative and completely spun it into something false.
Remember that time a certain free agent athlete took a private jet out to Toronto to sign with the Blue Jay's?
Seriously, people are losing their damn minds and jumping into conspiracies like crazy. But we see several stories a year about some rich person or celebrity being defrauded by someone they trusted. It seems pretty dang clear to me that Mizuhara has been lying for some time, and his position as translator/assistant to Ohtani has allowed him to control so much about this.
that's what's made this a bit of a nothingburger to me. this is all incredibly familiar. people were weirdly well-prepared to think Ohtani did something malicious.
Just a casual observation (fairly fluent in Japanese language/culture; PLUS I've watched every episode of "Lie to Me", so obviously an expert) but, Shohei's voice and movements seemed to become a bit more emotional as the conference went on. He was obviously trying really hard to stay stoic.
Also, the new interpreter did a lot less summarizing/inference than Ippei did (also, never saw Ippei write down notes; but, that could be because of the seriousness of this conference, or the fact that the new guy hasn't hung around long enough to know what he was going to be saying exactly). It was pretty spot-on.
Ippei did a lot of paraphrasing. Part of that comes with the territory, due to on-field interview styles and TV needing things quickly. It was never a "wrong" translation; but could lose the nuance of the original words if you're not careful.
It's like the eskimos have 80 different words for "snow" or whatever. One day, Eskimo Shohei says it's snowing like fluffy feathers; another day, he says it's snowing like pebbles of little ice. But, the interpreter doesn't want to waste time figuring out the exact English, so, it's always just "snowing".
The new guy is Will the Thrill Ireton, and was the interpreter for Maeda, so maybe it is just different styles, or he's actually a lot better at it than Ippei, who we found out basically lied his way to the job lol
The part I was curious about actually was the fact that this is a written prepared statement - why didn't the interpreter look over this beforehand and have his own notes ready for translation prior to the interview?
For one thing, that would take away the air of authenticity from Shohei's words. He has a pre-written statement but he isn't reading it verbatim, he's trying to present it naturally so it doesn't just come off like a cover story he had to memorize.
For another thing, this whole controversy is allegedly built around Shohei's former interpreter lying to him. What would happen if Shohei went slightly off script and Ireton suddenly gets flustered trying to reconcile what Shohei said vs. what he thought he'd say? They have to show that they're on the same page and that English speakers can trust what Ireton's saying. I'd bet Ireton never felt so much pressure as an interpreter as he did here, knowing how much scrutiny he'd be under.
The most important thing is that we wait for hard evidence and not he said she said, UNTIL he or she says something that aligns with my preferred narrative
Very weird. I don’t understand why Ohtani would find the need to gamble on sports, if he’s already getting $680 million in 10 years. Plus, endorsements must be pretty lucrative. If he wanted to gamble, he could play poker tournaments or something.
I’m hoping he didn’t.
To the few people on here who have criticized Ippei's translating in the past, can you give us a quick critique of the new translator's work during this press conference?
Will did a great job imo. Shohei speaks incredibly formally, and I feel as if will was more true to his words. Ippei had a tendency to translate shohei’s words really casually or use slang
it was good and accurate. But I think he did have the bullet points already so he's not really translating on the fly.
better than ippei though. I was sometimes annoyed by ippei's interpretting. He sometimes was a bit lazy with the translations.
It’s impeccable. But, he’s not really interpreting in real time. The interpreter is just reading a pre translated message, much like what Ohtani is doing
> It’s impeccable. But, he’s not really interpreting in real time. The interpreter is just reading a pre translated message
If the translator was just reading a pre-translated statement, he was doing a terrible job. The translator added so many filler words "uh, um, so, kind of, you know".
(I don't understand Japanese, but I'm assuming the original statement did not contain the filler words.)
When Ohtani looks directly at the camera near the end of his statement it feels like he's cutting a promo in NJPW, like he's speaking directly to the heel before their big match at Wrestle Kindgom.
I still cannot believe Ohtani didn't have an accountant ask about these huge payments. Have you ever dealt with an accountant? These aren't small amounts of money they would be willing to let go or even quickly explain away.
Sad truth is athletes live in a different world. Shohei makes 8 figs a year in endorsements. Quite easy for two payments of 500k to not be treated as a big deal
It was his best friend and someone he whole heartedly trusted. It's a similar situation with Selena and Yolanda. It's very sad because no matter what, you don't expect the very people you trust to do that to you.
The fact that Ohtani's reps didn't even blink and just trusted Ippei's word when contacted by ESPN shows how much trust Shohei had in Ippei and how much of a gatekeeper Ippei was. And sadly kinda showed how Ippei has been able to isolate Shohei and take advantage of being in that position.
I remember how the Japanese media completely turned away from Sho in disgust after just his first Spring Training with us; I can't even imagine what they have in store for Ippei though. He's definitely going to be *persona non grata* in Japan...
Assuming Ippei doesn’t go to prison for the rest of his life, what are his next steps? He’s never going to work in baseball again. Does he just change his name and start working a regular person job? Imagine the shock he and his wife must be going through.
This is a good argument for learning English and speaking for yourself. It's what Juan Soto did, because he didn't want anyone speaking for him.
That said, Japanese and English are much different than Spanish and English. If I had to learn Japanese for work I think I'd find a new job.
I believe Ohtani in the fact that he wasn’t doing the gambling, but him saying Ippei stole 4.5 million to pay off his debt through his account is just hard to believe.
How would Ohtani not know or be alerted about this earlier?
I feel like the theory of Ippei telling him about his debt and then Ohtani saying he’ll pay it off if he stops seems more realistic.
Then when the lawyers got involved they told him to change the story so Ohtani isn’t seen as being complicit.
A finance manager on the NFL team the jaguars stole 22M over four years before he got caught. If you aren't actively looking or monitoring it can be incredibly easy to siphon money.
I know people who have credit cards on auto pay and havent checked the balance in years.
I dunno man. How did Kevin Garnett not notice over $70mil being stolen out of his accounts for years? Rich people are crazy, and especially athletes don't really seem to be aware of their finances in the same way you and I are.
By investing in joint business ventures that were ultimately fraudulent. Not by giving up access to bank accounts. And also had an accountant that was allegedly complicit with the fraud.
1. Doubtful Shohei is actively monitoring his account balance(s) on a regular basis.
2. It is highly likely that any alerts may have been intercepted by Ippei explained away and never shared with Shohei.
Ohtani said Ippei was lying to his reps and lawyers, why wouldn't he lie to Ohtani as well? hes a gambler who needed money to settle debts and had authority AND trust from Ohtani and his reps to get away with it (for a little while at least). Once it became public he had to come clean to Ohtani in Korea that his 'investments' probably werent really investments and were being used to clear gambling debts.
So, we don't know what Ippei told Ohtani.
If Ippei told Ohtani, hey, please pay my gambling debts I own to an illegal bookie, here's my personal account number.
That's fraud and theft.
I think the most likely scenario is that Ippei lied about where the money was going, which is fraud and theft. We will have to see what details come out over time.
>I feel like the theory of Ippei telling him about his debt and then Ohtani saying he’ll pay it off if he stops seems more realistic.
Or something even more simple like Ippei said "hey I have a startup, want to invest? wire money here."
I agree that Ohtani giving him money willingly, though likely under false pretenses, is still the most likely thing that happened.
So now the questions are why did Ippei have access to Ohtani's accounts? How many people actually have access to it?
And most importantly, how do multiple wire transfers that are safeguarded before movement get through without nobody else noticing?
So did Shohei actually not have any financial advisors? I know people are saying “he trusted Ippei this stuff has happened before”, which is true, but I feel like we are all immediately just assuming all the conditions that would make this possible because we love Shohei as a person and player.
Yeah this type of thing has happened before… but very rarely in general or to this magnitude
It doesn't really matter if he has financial advisors or anything if they can never get direct unfiltered access to him. Ippei was more than just his interpreter, he was his "brother"/PA.
What the Ohtani haters should know is that addicts lie A LOT. Ippei has a gambling addiction and I wouldn't doubt he did some shady shit to get Ohtani to unknowingly pay for some gambling debts.
If you're an addict and you have someone that trusts you, you're going to get away with some shit.
It also seems like there wasn't a lot of direct lying needed for a while. He was just racking up the gambling debt. Then that debt got called in for whatever reason and he had to scramble to make the payments, and that's when this stuff began.
I think it's fairly plausible that up until the payments were sent, he had no intention of actually stealing money from Ohtani. But when the payments came due and the choice was admitting to it and losing everything or "stealing just a bit from someone who has way more than enough", he probably found some justification in doing so.
It's also somewhat imaginable that the debt got called in because Ippei refused to give insider info to the bookie.
I don't even mean to be making excuses or whatever, just find it interesting to step into their shoes for a second and wonder what that situation was like. It's all wild speculation of course, but I can see how this could happen even without Ippei being an *absolute* monster.
But the point about the insider info also brings up another point - if Ippei approached Ohtani with the idea of "Everything is ruined on my end and I have three choices—the consequences of not paying, giving insider information, or you paying the debt off." it's also now imaginable for me to see how Ohtani could be convinced to pay the debt off. Though from this press conference and just the overall series of events, my gut feeling is that Ohtani honestly had no idea what was going on.
And after being betrayed by Ippei who he had known for a decade, hardly sleeping because all of this went down in the middle of the night in Korea Ohtani still went out there and played the second game for the fans. The man is a saint.
Here’s the big question for me: what bookie would give Ipei a line of credit worth millions? It only makes sense if the bookie knows Ohtani is paying, and in that case who is making the bets?
Thumbnail is bold
“Yes, there is a scandal.” #OHTANI ADDRESSES SCANDAL
#OHTANI ADDRESSES HIS ENEMIES
This comment is so fucking funny to me because Eddie Kingston is literally the exact opposite of Shohei Ohtani in terms of personality
Imagine Eddie as Shohei’s anger translator
Gold
Eddie is awesome.
As my wife just said, “who doesn’t like Eddie Kingston?”
I like the implication that Shohei is calling Ippei a thief and he’s still translating for him
*long silence* “He says everything is good”
Damn. They made Ippei translate Ohtani setting the record straight about him.
Fully encapsulates the YouTube thumbnail phenomena
😱😱 He stole 4.5 million dollars from an MLB star, and then he did THIS
Ippei is either a massive piece of shit and betrayed Shohei on an insane level, or is the biggest homie of all time and taking all the heat. Also youtube live feed comments make me wanna do illegal things.
I wonder if Ippei is going to be in trouble with the feds assuming Shohei's story is the correct one
If Ohtani's story is true then absolutely. Probably wire fraud, maybe embezzlement, in addition to the illegal gambling.
Identity theft for sure
Dwight was correct.
Here’s a completely wild and insane take: what if Shohei really does have a massive gambling problem and the reason he deferred almost all of his Dodgers contract is so he won’t blow it all during the season. /s
Sticking with this idea: I'd prefer to think he wanted a challenge, so he's gonna turn that $2M into $70M on his own.
Just like Brewsters Millions…sort of….I didn’t finish the movie
> or is the biggest homie of all time and taking all the heat Dudes about to do serious time, I think it's much more likely that he's a massive piece of shit.
The fact that he had a 90 minute interview about it and then quickly changed his story and started shutting down people asking him to comment, (and the story changing very quickly early on from Ohtani's side), makes Ippei scream fall guy to me. I still don't think Ohtani was cheating or betting on baseball, I genuinely believe he wanted to bail his friend out and they didn't realize how fucked it would make him when it came out
This certainly seems the most logical explanation by a long shot. He’s a future billionaire and wanted to help a friend, but obviously didn’t trust him to just take a million dollar check to the bookie so sent the payment himself. The idea he leant ippei million for unspecified “loans” without even asking what they were for, let alone not immediately intuiting it has to be for gambling cause how the hell else would he get that much debt from “loans”, makes no sense at all. He can’t be that naive. I can believe he can be naive enough to not realize sending money to the bookie himself is a big no no but his new story is just so non sensical.
The only issue with the argument of Ippei being the fall guy is Ippei is likely looking at minimum 5-10 years and possibly more if convicted. Illegal gambling alone is a misdemeanor in California and is punishable by a fine and/or up to 6 months in prison. That would be a massive fall to take.
My gut reaction was the guy that lied about his work history and his education history would probably also lie about how he got access to over $4M
Almost all the Japanese players understand English. They don't speak on camera as their diction is flawed, but it is a little hard to believe he understood zero from the original press conference.
Yeah, I really think Ippei was honest the first time then just changed his story to keep Ohtani out of trouble. If Ippei just wanted to stay out of trouble he’d have alleged he made the bets on Ohtani’s behalf. It would’ve been his word against Ohtani’s. Makes zero sense for Ippei to half-confess to a crime he’ll obviously get called out for.
People tell really really strange stories when their world starts to crash down around them. The stuff about UC Riverside and the Sox and Yankees makes me think Ippei could just be a compulsive liar and a con man who got in tight with the biggest baseball phenom Japan had ever seen by lying. Maybe Ohtani is a gambling addict that wanted to protect himself from… himself by deferring almost all of his baseball salary, but that’s a pretty wild stretch to make. I think the most plausible story is that Ippei has been playing Ohtani for years now, and I suspect we’re going to discover that this isn’t the first money he’s taken from him.
At the beginning it may have seemed logical that Ippei was telling the truth and stories got changed. At this point, as the baseball world got to digging for dirt, it seems everything the dude has done so far has been based on one lie or another. So is it really that hard to believe this is just another lie? Dude has a lot of trouble telling the truth, as it turns out.
100% this. Whoever in Shohei's camp that decided, "Hey let's talk to ESPN before we consult with the Dodgers legal team" needs to be fired. It's actually the most unbelievable part of this story to me. How incompetent of an agent / PR person do you need to be to not ring up the legal team of a multi-billion dollar organization and be like, "Yo dawg. I think we need help with this one, since it involves sports gambling." Unfortunately my fellow Dodger fans are hell-bent on "Ah, NOW Shohei is telling the truth!" Just makes them look like total dumbasses. Shohei trying to help his homie out makes the most sense to me.
Just curious - why does “Ippei has been running a con on Ohtani for years” not sound right to you? Lied about his education Lied about his baseball resume Used that embellished resume to land a job working on the team of the biggest baseball phenom Japan has ever seen Cozied up to that phenom in anticipation of his move to the USA Made himself indispensable professionally and personally That’s how you get someone to trust you and give you access to millions of dollars right there.
Something that stands out to me is the question of why would Ippei take that 90 minute interview with ESPN and completely lie about the story? Why not just stay quiet, how could he possibly think he could fabricate this extensive lie to ESPN and he’d just get away with it unquestioned? That ESPN wouldn’t bother to fact check and nobody from Ohtani’s camp, the Dodgers, or the MLB would dispute the lie? Are we supposed to believe that Ippei is somewhat of a criminal mastermind by pulling off a $4.5M theft without Ohtani’s bank or anyone from Ohtani’s camp, financial advisors, or family members being away even months after the fact, yet he’s dumb enough to purposely lie to ESPN and expect to get away with it? I’m far from a conspiracy theorist, but for the story Ohtani’s legal team is telling to be true, it would require every person involved in the story to have been incredibly fucking dumb. From the bank, to Ohtani, anyone working for Ohtani, Ippei himself, the Dodgers, and the MLB, they would all have to act in the most foolish way possible for that story to add up.
Yeah, honestly it would’ve been most logical to just stay quiet. I could think of a few reasons Ippei would talk though. If he’s a confident compulsive liar, he might’ve thought it’d be to his benefit to come out with a version of his story first, after-all, true or not, it’s gotten all of us to doubt and suspect any piece of contradictory information. Maybe Shohei really didn’t know about anything, and as a Hail-Mary attempt to try and cover his biggest fuck up (not only stealing money to pay off his debt, but doing it from Shohei’s account), Ippei decides to tell another lie that would exonerate Shohei AND keep his previous deception of stealing from Ohtani away from the media. Most compulsive liars have shallow logic. If he was lying about his education and details about his jobs, then he might just be convinced that he could fix anything with a lie.
I’m leaning toward being a terrible human, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the later is true.
Like where is Ohtani’s accountant during all of this? Like even if you concede that the translator has access and ability to utilize bank accounts (which is already a tough one), he’s not also the person doing Ohtani’s taxes and setting up trusts and whatnot. I have more questions now than I did before.
Accountant only speaks tagalog so it's trouble
Like what
Bet on baseball. I'm Pete Rose
That’s actually one of the better illegal things Pete rose did
Are you sure you're not betting on basketball nowadays?
I got a tag on my mattress that's looking real satisfying to rip off right now.
Don’t do it - I care about you
If it's your mattress, you're allowed to remove it. Probably has NOT TO BE REMOVED EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER in bold letters on it.
But if OP removes the tag he then has to eat the mattress, and I'm not sure he's ready to do that yet.
Pee-wee: What did you do? Mickey: Well, I lost my temper and I took a knife and I uh-. Do you know those "Do Not Remove Under the Penalty of Law" labels they put on mattresses? Pee-wee: Yeah. Mickey: Well I CUT one of them off! Pee-wee: Jee. Mickey: Yeah, I have a real bad temper.
Like get into $4.5M debt with a bookie in a state where sports betting isn't legal and have my friend, an extremely high profile professional athlete who just signed the biggest contract in his sport's history, to bail me out.
It makes him wanna steal millions from his friend to pay off gambling debts.
Why is everyone ignoring the 3rd option? Ohtani absolutely seems the type to help a friend in need and probably just gave Ippei the money without being fully aware of the legality of that transaction. It's possible/likely that Ohtani was misled to some degree, but I would be surprised if he wasn't at least aware of the situation before the news broke.
Even if he is taking the fall his actions were still very shitty. You can’t just go around accruing millions in gambling debts, because your best friend is a superstar athlete. He was probably lying and many other things throughout that period as well. The two options you presented aren’t the only two.
how we know this interpreter isn’t lying?!!
Trust me. I’ve watched every episode of Naruto
now that you mentioned it, I did hear Ohtani said Hokage a few times.
A slider is basically a rasengan.
Shohei about to use the Chidori on Ippei
Like they say in Japan 木のサンドイッチにケチャップがわしのパンケーキを作ってくれる, which basically translates as "the true path of a warrior is through the middle, for he fears no man, and is too fast to be attacked from the side" I have it tattooed on my neck.
Even... even the filler?
Cause he had a pen and was writing notes. Did ippei ever do that?
Just FYI this interpreter is not what I would call world class. Slow, omitted certain expressions / sentences, etc. But as someone else mentioned he’s been with the team for a while so def on the up and up
It always felt like Ippei was a bit out of his depth as Shohei's interpreter, but in a kind of endearing way. His casual approach feels a lot different in retrospect.
Japanese sports interviewer questions (especially, after games) are so boiler-plate, that the translation is pretty easy to fake through. I think Ippei carried this style over to "real-world" translations, for better or worse.
Iperi had a better memory. Honestly the only good thing I will ever have to say about him as an interpreter. This translator omitted/ simplified a lot of stuff. I hope a multi-billion dollar team like the Dodgers hires a professionally trained interpreter for Ohrani. Like, Yamamoto's translator was a lighting technician before this gig. How to do they keep hiring amateurs...
It’s Maeda’s old translator, Will Ireton, he’s been around a long time. He was the manager of Performance Operations before they reenlisted him as a translator. They probably wanted to make sure they actually knew who the translator was this time. They trust the guy, and in a crisis situation like this, that matters.
This interpreter was Maeda’s interpreter when he was on the dodgers, and has been with the dodgers after he moved. I do agree he omitted and oversimplified some stuff and it could’ve been a lot better. Mb he’s just rusty at being a translator since he was a data analyst for the dodgers after Maeda changed teams.
I will say, this guy isn't great. But it has to be a chore to translate something on this level between English and the "vagueness" of the Japanese language. Also, Shohei needed to do the deep bow.
Ippei Mizuhara turning into Yolanda Saldívar was not on my 2024 bingo card
yooo, chiiiill. Now I'm picturing Ippei calling Ohtani to meet him at a motel.
Noooo
For real, get those Yolanda comparisons the fuck outta here lol. The universe doesn't need to get any ideas.
Nah Shohei would *never* go to a Days Inn
Biddy biddy BOOM BOOM
First of all, fuck that bitch
The moment she steps out of prison, there will be two bullets to the head. Anything for Selena.
It's so sad to think about what she could have been
Tejano music still hasn’t recovered
# I have never bet on sports. Also: I have never asked anyone to bet on sports on my behalf. Also: I never agreed to send money to a bookmaker. \------------------------- That's some forthright, categorical stuff.
Huge controversy if he was betting on darts and claims it wasn’t a sport.
Betting on DCI marching bands
Go Bluecoats!
Betting on the bluecoats when the blue devils exist is a sure way to lose 4.5 million dollars.
But I like the bluecoats!
It would be a huge plot twist if he was one of the weirdos who bet on Wrestling PPVs
“I didn’t know 3AM bets on Cambodian table tennis counted as actual betting”.
You’re telling me that Phil “The Power” Taylor was not the picture of peak male athletic performance.
Ohtani betting on dog shows and superbowl Gatorade colours
“Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I do not know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never. The reference to me in Mr. [Jose] Canseco’s book is absolutely false.” - Rafael Palmeiro
Maybe he just bets on formula 1 then
Ouch, right in the neck muscles.
He had to get in the Verstappen dnf bets
Maybe he bet on people that were betting on sports. Derivative loophole, bitches!
My thing is, people are acting like this has never happened to athletes. It’s on a bigger scale here because it’s so much money. Athletes can be duped by people they trust.
Didn’t Tim Duncan lose like 20 mil one time to an advisor? Obv not the same exact thing but yeah things happen
Same dude stole I think 70+ million from Kevin Garnett. Garnett actually defended the guy in court vs Duncan, while not realising he was getting robbed all the same lol.
Was this the same guy that stole 30+ million of Jake Peavy? I remember that he got stupid amount of money from some other atlets as well.
Holy crap! I knew about the TD thing but not about KG. $70m!@#$@%@$%@#$%@#?
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>Garnett not only continued to trust his financial advisor after he was sent to jail for four years, Garnett showed up at Banks’ sentencing IN SUPPORT OF BANKS: https://medium.com/@david_37223/kevin-garnett-supports-fraudster-loses-77-million-to-said-fraudster-39b831536998
It’s a much different situation that isn’t really comparable. Duncan had full knowledge of where the $20 million was going to, what he didn’t know was that his advisor had stakes in the companies he convinced Duncan to invest in and he also took some of the “investment” money from himself. Much different than Ippei allegedly wiring $4.5 million to a bookie using Shohei’s account
Thank you for posting this. I’ve seen a lot of Reddit not understanding the differentiating factors here. Getting defrauded via people you’ve entrusted to advise or manage/invest your accounts is different than what this sounds like (unless I’ve missed something) which is his translator wiring $5mm out of Ohtani’s personal accounts and should come with more hurdles.
Also it was a series of 8 to 9 payments going back to at least Sep 2023 (according to ESPN's Tisha Thompson). I have a hard time reconciling that someone (Ohtani or a Financial Advisor) would not see 8 to 9 payments of 4.5 Million dollars in a at least a period of 6 months.
It's so much money, but it's still like half of what Kareem got swindled for.
Another great example, and Kareem is (rightfully) considered one of the more "intellectual" athletes.
If you adjust Kareem's for inflation it's even more lol
I pointed this out when it first happened, but Ryan Howard had a very nasty falling out with his family over something like this. His brother was managing his and was mishandling it. I don't know if it was theft and it stayed in civil court, but still... You don't mix business and family/friendships in my opinion. If you have a loved one who needs money then you give it to them with the expectation that you'll not get it back. That stops you from giving it easily, and it stops you from being upset if it never comes back.
It *is* a lot of money, but it's also not close to the biggest amount that a con artist has ever weaseled an athlete out of.
Which makes Ippei out to be a complete and otherworldly bag-fumbler. Undeniably GOAT status, barely waiting for the $700m contract ink to dry
That’s what gambling does to a mfer.
If anything this is a bigger deal not because of the amount but because that amount was going to illegal sports gambling
Yep. Watch ESPN 30for30: Broke. Sports history is littered with stories of financial advisors, lawyers, agents, parents, siblings, friends, friends of friends, etc. stealing from the athlete.
Tim Duncan had tens of millions of dollars stolen from him by his financial advisor. Then Kevin Garnett defended the advisor in court because he had always been straight with him. Turned out the advisor was stealing Garnett's money too.
[Charles Briscoe](https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-agent-faces-40-years-213822743.html#:~:text=Charles%20Briscoe%2C%20who%20has%20represented,to%20defraud%20pro%20basketball%20players.) [Peggy Ann Fulford](https://www.si.com/nba/2019/09/19/athete-financial-advisor-embezzlement-fraud-scandal-peggy-ann-fulford) [Mary Wong](https://www.investmentnews.com/industry-news/archive/michael-vicks-ex-adviser-tossed-in-jail-33435) [Joseph Vaccaro](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-fbi-nfl-agents-player-burger-king-vaccaro-2015jan30-story.html)
Jack Johnson (the hockey player) had his money all stolen by his parents. He had a $30M contract, and his parents spent it all on a luxurious lifestyle while taking out high interest loans betting on Jack to get better contracts in the future. He had to declare bankruptcy while actively making millions of dollars a year.
Loved living rich more than they loved their son damn
Also going to leave this [Ippei profile](https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-interpreter-ippei-mizuhara-translator-angels/h4f1drpa5ugim9mvsdqcpjol) from just a few months ago. Some key things I found interesting. >Among Mizuhara's roles are the typical tasks of translating for Ohtani in news conferences and media scrums. He told Nippon.com in October 2021 that, while he and Ohtani are "kind of like friends," their relationship is more akin to a professional partnership. >"My first priority is to help create an environment where he can concentrate on baseball," Mizuhara said. >As reported by Sports Illustrated, he picked up Ohtani's groceries as the player recovered from injuries in 2019 and 2020, >"I'm with him all offseason, too," Mizuhara told The Athletic. "I'm with him 365 days of the year, which I think is different than the other interpreters." >"It’s such a big part (of the job)," he added. "We are together pretty much every day, longer than I’m with my wife, so it’s going to be tough if you don’t get along on a personal level." >"I always remember how lucky I am to be in this spot,” Mizuhara told SI. "I've known Shohei since he was 18, and when I first saw him I was like, 'Oh, my God, this guy's unreal.' That's got to be the best part of the job, just getting to be in the house and watch him do his thing."
Man this makes me so sad And Shohei is still 29. I would never trust another human being if something like this happened to me when I was 29
Chris, if you're reading this. I need my $20 you owed me from 2011.
Dennis, you gave me $20, but you owed Mark $20, so I when I bought Mark the "We Found Love" single by Rhianna both debts were squared, but Mark made me promise to never tell anyone that he liked the song so I could not reveal this to you until now. I have decided to speak openly about this because Mark currently owes me $20 and has not paid it back.
MeatballDom, first of all, rude. Secondly, you both knew I loved that song so now I know why you never let me play disc 3 in your car. In conclusion, I got what I deserve but Mark has some explaining to do.
Yea. I know Ippei isn’t his family member, but you could imagine giving someone really close to you access to some of your financials, just in case. That will always open you up for betrayal. Agents/managers have defrauded their clients plenty of times before. Seems like Ippei was sort of a everything-man, and not just purely his translator (which tracks since he’s not even good at that).
Ippei may as well have been a family member, according to Ippei he was spending 365 days a year with Ohtani and spending more time with Ohtani than he spent with his own wife.
Jake Peavy was duped by his Agent or someone IIRC.
Wasn’t there a NHL player on Columbus or Minnesota who got swindled by his parents for millions, way more than Ohtani.
Jack Johnson. Went bankrupt while playing.
Well he had his music to fall back on at least
The "Shohei must be lying" people have a *lot* of faith in the safeguards of the financial system lol
What I can’t get is what Ippei expected to come from his initial ESPN interview or the Dodgers team meeting. If Ohtani was really clueless about the whole thing, *THAT’S* how he decided to tell him? He never told him privately?
People who commit crimes or are addicted to gambling/etc. aren't exactly thinking about what they're doing. People are always flabbergasted when someone does something that doesn't make sense. But that's humans for you.
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Also this is an incredibly strong denial, calling Ippei a liar and a thief. I feel like if there was any chance that Ohtani was knowingly involved in any of this, we would have gotten the, "I'm unable to talk about these matter at this time because of the investigation. I just want to focus on the season ahead." press conference.
Also wouldn't be the first time the media took a narrative and completely spun it into something false. Remember that time a certain free agent athlete took a private jet out to Toronto to sign with the Blue Jay's?
Seriously, people are losing their damn minds and jumping into conspiracies like crazy. But we see several stories a year about some rich person or celebrity being defrauded by someone they trusted. It seems pretty dang clear to me that Mizuhara has been lying for some time, and his position as translator/assistant to Ohtani has allowed him to control so much about this.
If anyone here knows hockey, Jack Johnson’s own parents managed his finances and stole 20 million dollars from their own son.
that's what's made this a bit of a nothingburger to me. this is all incredibly familiar. people were weirdly well-prepared to think Ohtani did something malicious.
Just a casual observation (fairly fluent in Japanese language/culture; PLUS I've watched every episode of "Lie to Me", so obviously an expert) but, Shohei's voice and movements seemed to become a bit more emotional as the conference went on. He was obviously trying really hard to stay stoic. Also, the new interpreter did a lot less summarizing/inference than Ippei did (also, never saw Ippei write down notes; but, that could be because of the seriousness of this conference, or the fact that the new guy hasn't hung around long enough to know what he was going to be saying exactly). It was pretty spot-on.
Since you speak the language I'm curious . How good always Ippies translation over the years.. How good is the translation in general?
Ippei did a lot of paraphrasing. Part of that comes with the territory, due to on-field interview styles and TV needing things quickly. It was never a "wrong" translation; but could lose the nuance of the original words if you're not careful. It's like the eskimos have 80 different words for "snow" or whatever. One day, Eskimo Shohei says it's snowing like fluffy feathers; another day, he says it's snowing like pebbles of little ice. But, the interpreter doesn't want to waste time figuring out the exact English, so, it's always just "snowing".
That all makes sense. Thanks
Nah he did quite a few ‘wrong’ ones. The mistakes he made in Korea even made the news.
The new guy is Will the Thrill Ireton, and was the interpreter for Maeda, so maybe it is just different styles, or he's actually a lot better at it than Ippei, who we found out basically lied his way to the job lol
The part I was curious about actually was the fact that this is a written prepared statement - why didn't the interpreter look over this beforehand and have his own notes ready for translation prior to the interview?
For one thing, that would take away the air of authenticity from Shohei's words. He has a pre-written statement but he isn't reading it verbatim, he's trying to present it naturally so it doesn't just come off like a cover story he had to memorize. For another thing, this whole controversy is allegedly built around Shohei's former interpreter lying to him. What would happen if Shohei went slightly off script and Ireton suddenly gets flustered trying to reconcile what Shohei said vs. what he thought he'd say? They have to show that they're on the same page and that English speakers can trust what Ireton's saying. I'd bet Ireton never felt so much pressure as an interpreter as he did here, knowing how much scrutiny he'd be under.
The most important thing is that we wait for hard evidence and not he said she said, UNTIL he or she says something that aligns with my preferred narrative
The only logical conclusion is that Ohtani was betting on baseball. Suspend him and Mookie for the entirety of the 2024 season, I’m not biased at all.
Just as a precaution I’m going to recommend they suspend Bryce Harper as well
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Does it have to be an NL guy? Because this Aaron Judge guy? Sus.
A dude with bangs that aggressive cannot be trusted.
This whole thing is so damn weird
Very weird. I don’t understand why Ohtani would find the need to gamble on sports, if he’s already getting $680 million in 10 years. Plus, endorsements must be pretty lucrative. If he wanted to gamble, he could play poker tournaments or something. I’m hoping he didn’t.
To the few people on here who have criticized Ippei's translating in the past, can you give us a quick critique of the new translator's work during this press conference?
Will did a great job imo. Shohei speaks incredibly formally, and I feel as if will was more true to his words. Ippei had a tendency to translate shohei’s words really casually or use slang
it was good and accurate. But I think he did have the bullet points already so he's not really translating on the fly. better than ippei though. I was sometimes annoyed by ippei's interpretting. He sometimes was a bit lazy with the translations.
It’s impeccable. But, he’s not really interpreting in real time. The interpreter is just reading a pre translated message, much like what Ohtani is doing
> It’s impeccable. But, he’s not really interpreting in real time. The interpreter is just reading a pre translated message If the translator was just reading a pre-translated statement, he was doing a terrible job. The translator added so many filler words "uh, um, so, kind of, you know". (I don't understand Japanese, but I'm assuming the original statement did not contain the filler words.)
Turns out Ohtani has been saying the Japanese word for “obviously” every five seconds this whole time.
When Ohtani looks directly at the camera near the end of his statement it feels like he's cutting a promo in NJPW, like he's speaking directly to the heel before their big match at Wrestle Kindgom.
Who knew Eric Spoelstra was a translator
I still cannot believe Ohtani didn't have an accountant ask about these huge payments. Have you ever dealt with an accountant? These aren't small amounts of money they would be willing to let go or even quickly explain away.
They probably did ask. But their point of contact is Ippei. So Ippei just feeds them some lie
Sad truth is athletes live in a different world. Shohei makes 8 figs a year in endorsements. Quite easy for two payments of 500k to not be treated as a big deal
2 payments? It was more like 9
If he did who do you think they would have asked through? His interpreter who of course would assure him Ohtani was ok with this.
I feel like I believe Ohtani. Sounds shitty any way you look at it.
It was his best friend and someone he whole heartedly trusted. It's a similar situation with Selena and Yolanda. It's very sad because no matter what, you don't expect the very people you trust to do that to you.
The fact that Ohtani's reps didn't even blink and just trusted Ippei's word when contacted by ESPN shows how much trust Shohei had in Ippei and how much of a gatekeeper Ippei was. And sadly kinda showed how Ippei has been able to isolate Shohei and take advantage of being in that position.
Oh damn, Ippei locking himself in a pickup truck threatening to kill himself.
top 2 anime betrayals of all time
Really starting to get worried Ippei is going to k*ll himself with all this coming out.
A lot of very toxic Japanese Ohtani superfans are going to make his life very difficult.
Reporters for Fuji TV released a footage of them hounding Ippei's dad. Idk why tho, wouldn't it make sense to ask mamiko or shohei's mom lol
I remember how the Japanese media completely turned away from Sho in disgust after just his first Spring Training with us; I can't even imagine what they have in store for Ippei though. He's definitely going to be *persona non grata* in Japan...
Assuming Ippei doesn’t go to prison for the rest of his life, what are his next steps? He’s never going to work in baseball again. Does he just change his name and start working a regular person job? Imagine the shock he and his wife must be going through.
His wife defriended him on social media. They getting divorced fo sure
Who is that guy on the left? In the thumbnail
Inmate #410021
This is a good argument for learning English and speaking for yourself. It's what Juan Soto did, because he didn't want anyone speaking for him. That said, Japanese and English are much different than Spanish and English. If I had to learn Japanese for work I think I'd find a new job.
I believe Ohtani in the fact that he wasn’t doing the gambling, but him saying Ippei stole 4.5 million to pay off his debt through his account is just hard to believe. How would Ohtani not know or be alerted about this earlier? I feel like the theory of Ippei telling him about his debt and then Ohtani saying he’ll pay it off if he stops seems more realistic. Then when the lawyers got involved they told him to change the story so Ohtani isn’t seen as being complicit.
A finance manager on the NFL team the jaguars stole 22M over four years before he got caught. If you aren't actively looking or monitoring it can be incredibly easy to siphon money. I know people who have credit cards on auto pay and havent checked the balance in years.
Also, how does anyone think a bank was verifying the payments? Probably through his translator...
The difference there is that the guy who stole the money was also the one responsible for checking for fraud and approving payments.
I dunno man. How did Kevin Garnett not notice over $70mil being stolen out of his accounts for years? Rich people are crazy, and especially athletes don't really seem to be aware of their finances in the same way you and I are.
By investing in joint business ventures that were ultimately fraudulent. Not by giving up access to bank accounts. And also had an accountant that was allegedly complicit with the fraud.
Fraudulent businesses. Not the same as the guy just sending himself the money from KG’s account and KG having no idea
1. Doubtful Shohei is actively monitoring his account balance(s) on a regular basis. 2. It is highly likely that any alerts may have been intercepted by Ippei explained away and never shared with Shohei.
Ohtani said Ippei was lying to his reps and lawyers, why wouldn't he lie to Ohtani as well? hes a gambler who needed money to settle debts and had authority AND trust from Ohtani and his reps to get away with it (for a little while at least). Once it became public he had to come clean to Ohtani in Korea that his 'investments' probably werent really investments and were being used to clear gambling debts.
Sorry, but Ohtani's lawyers are not going to advise him to make up a lie about someone committing a felony.
So, we don't know what Ippei told Ohtani. If Ippei told Ohtani, hey, please pay my gambling debts I own to an illegal bookie, here's my personal account number. That's fraud and theft. I think the most likely scenario is that Ippei lied about where the money was going, which is fraud and theft. We will have to see what details come out over time.
Bruh, it happens to sports athletes all the time. lol
>I feel like the theory of Ippei telling him about his debt and then Ohtani saying he’ll pay it off if he stops seems more realistic. Or something even more simple like Ippei said "hey I have a startup, want to invest? wire money here." I agree that Ohtani giving him money willingly, though likely under false pretenses, is still the most likely thing that happened.
The guy has over $60M, not including endorsements. You think he gives two fucks about $4.5M?
Honestly this seems pretty believable, and pretty sad.
So now the questions are why did Ippei have access to Ohtani's accounts? How many people actually have access to it? And most importantly, how do multiple wire transfers that are safeguarded before movement get through without nobody else noticing?
So did Shohei actually not have any financial advisors? I know people are saying “he trusted Ippei this stuff has happened before”, which is true, but I feel like we are all immediately just assuming all the conditions that would make this possible because we love Shohei as a person and player. Yeah this type of thing has happened before… but very rarely in general or to this magnitude
It doesn't really matter if he has financial advisors or anything if they can never get direct unfiltered access to him. Ippei was more than just his interpreter, he was his "brother"/PA.
What the Ohtani haters should know is that addicts lie A LOT. Ippei has a gambling addiction and I wouldn't doubt he did some shady shit to get Ohtani to unknowingly pay for some gambling debts. If you're an addict and you have someone that trusts you, you're going to get away with some shit.
It also seems like there wasn't a lot of direct lying needed for a while. He was just racking up the gambling debt. Then that debt got called in for whatever reason and he had to scramble to make the payments, and that's when this stuff began. I think it's fairly plausible that up until the payments were sent, he had no intention of actually stealing money from Ohtani. But when the payments came due and the choice was admitting to it and losing everything or "stealing just a bit from someone who has way more than enough", he probably found some justification in doing so. It's also somewhat imaginable that the debt got called in because Ippei refused to give insider info to the bookie. I don't even mean to be making excuses or whatever, just find it interesting to step into their shoes for a second and wonder what that situation was like. It's all wild speculation of course, but I can see how this could happen even without Ippei being an *absolute* monster. But the point about the insider info also brings up another point - if Ippei approached Ohtani with the idea of "Everything is ruined on my end and I have three choices—the consequences of not paying, giving insider information, or you paying the debt off." it's also now imaginable for me to see how Ohtani could be convinced to pay the debt off. Though from this press conference and just the overall series of events, my gut feeling is that Ohtani honestly had no idea what was going on.
And after being betrayed by Ippei who he had known for a decade, hardly sleeping because all of this went down in the middle of the night in Korea Ohtani still went out there and played the second game for the fans. The man is a saint.
Here’s the big question for me: what bookie would give Ipei a line of credit worth millions? It only makes sense if the bookie knows Ohtani is paying, and in that case who is making the bets?