According to a recently made public audio clip, Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter first informed a reporter that the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger had consented to pay off his enormous gambling debt. However, less than a day later, the interpreter changed his mind and acknowledged that he had lied.
“The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani,” a new six-episode series from 30 for 30 Podcasts, features the interview, which federal officials subsequently said “created an international incident.” In a 90-minute interview with ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson, Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter who said he and Ohtani were “like brothers,” first claimed that Ohtani assisted him in repaying debts to an illicit bookmaker.
Mizuhara revealed how he met the bookmaker at a poker game and began betting with him. He also talked about how he got more and more in debt before asking Ohtani for assistance.
In the initial interview, Mizuhara stated:
“I asked him if he could pay my debt off. He had to give it some thought,”
“He wanted to make sure it’s going back to the debts,”
Mizuhara first claimed that Ohtani didn’t trust him not to gamble with the money when asked why Ohtani didn’t just hand it to him. However, the Dodgers fired Mizuhara less than a day later, and Ohtani’s lawyers claimed the player was the victim of “massive theft.” Mizuhara retracted a lot of what he had told Thompson in a second interview.
Mizuhara entered a guilty plea to federal charges of submitting a fake tax return and bank fraud. He is incarcerated for 57 months after admitting to stealing around $17 million from the Japanese celebrity.
