Bombshell Report Questions Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter’s Credibility About Basic Details

New details in the fallout between Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, suggest that while Ohtani was initially complicit in making large payments on Mizuhara’s behalf, he wasn’t aware what the payments were for.

Yet even believing Ohtani possessed that degree of knowledge when money was wired from his account to an alleged sports gambling ring led by Matthew Bowyer would appear to depend on the credibility of one man: Mizuhara.

Now, as the Dodgers prepare to regroup from a messy situation, Mizuhara’s credibility — with ESPN, with Ohtani, and with Ohtani’s agency and crisis-communication personnel — holds an important key to any future investigation by Major League Baseball and law enforcement.

ESPN reported that Tuesday morning in Seoul, Ohtani confirmed to his agent, Nez Balelo, that he covered Mizuhara’s debt of $4.5 million in $500,000 increments. Tisha Thompson reported that she subsequently spoke with a crisis-communications spokesperson for Ohtani who quoted Ohtani as saying “yeah, I sent several large payments. That’s the maximum amount I could send.”

Mizuhara is quoted on the record as saying Ohtani didn’t know the debt payments were made to an allegedly illegal sports gambling ring led by Matthew Bowyer:

Asked if Ohtani knew the person owed the money was a bookie, Mizuhara says his friend “didn’t have any clue.”

“I just told him I need to send a wire to pay off the debt,” Mizuhara says. “He didn’t ask if it was illegal, didn’t question me about that.”

Mizuhara says that, after Ohtani agreed to pay the debts, the two of them logged into Ohtani’s bank account on Ohtani’s computer and sent eight or nine transactions, each at $500,000, over several months. They added “loan” to the description field in the transactions. Mizuhara estimates the final payment was made in October.

— via ESPN

However, Mizuhara later walked back these comments to ESPN, claiming he had lied. The spokesperson also advised ESPN to discount Mizuhara’s claims because he had been interpreting from English to Japanese for Ohtani the whole time — presumably, including when Ohtani was quoted as saying “yeah, I sent several large payments.”

Mizuhara did not clarify to ESPN whether any payments he made from Ohtani’s account are the basis for the “theft” charges subsequently alleged by Ohtani’s lawyers. And the new report reiterates the most recent claim laid out by Ohtani’s camp: that he was unaware of money missing from his bank account until Mizuhara confessed to using it to pay off gambling debts after Wednesday’s game in Seoul.

Still outstanding is the central question at the crux of Ohtani’s future in court and in baseball: is his negligence over the nature of any payments he made on Mizuhara’s behalf enough to shield him from punishment for connection to illegal wagering on sports?

The new report indicates a possible paper trail from 2021-23, between the time Mizuhara claimed to begin placing wagers through Bowyer and the time he claimed to ask Ohtani for help paying his debts. A paper trail would allow Mizuhara to corroborate his claim of a gambling problem prior to Ohtani’s involvement in wiring money to Bowyer.

As for the rest of Mizuhara’s on-the-record statements, it’s hard to know where his credibility begins and ends. He admitted he lied to Ohtani — and to ESPN — but it isn’t clear what he lied about and when.

For now, a messy saga is only getting messier.

Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports