Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani's former longtime interpreter and confidant, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison on Thursday after stealing nearly $17 million from baseball’s two-way global superstar to pay off sports gambling debts. Mizuhara, 40, used his proximity to Ohtani’s personal information and his role tending to many of the superstar’s off-field affairs to siphon funds from accounts and impersonate Ohtani in bank communications, the Associated Press reports. The court also ordered Mizuhara to pay Ohtani $17 million in restitution. Mizuhara had made a plea deal with prosecutors Ohtani's attorney, Michael Freedman, sought a sentence of just 18 months while the prosecution recommended the 57-month sentence. In siding with the prosecution, Judge John. Holcomb said Mizuhara's letter to the Santa Ana, Calif. court "undermined" his credibility due to omissions and misrepresentations.
Revelations of Mizuhara's stealing from Ohtani emerged in March 2024 during a federal investigation into a California bookmaker. It shattered a decadelong alliance between Ohtani and Mizuhara, who smoothed Ohtani’s transition to Major League Baseball when he joined the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. Mizuhara’s theft came before Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers took effect last year. Yet Ohtani earned around $65 million in salary during his six years with the Angels, and tens of millions more in endorsements. In court Thursday, Holcomb termed the magnitude of the theft "shockingly high," and acknowledged that it "remains to be seen" whether Mizuhara can repay Ohtani. Mizuhara, investigators say, began accessing Ohtani’s accounts in 2021 and gained the ability to approve wire transfers, which Mizuhara utilized to feed what he termed a gambling addiction and a “terrible mistake” in his plea for leniency. Federal prosecutors pushed back on that characterization, saying Mizuhara did not have an addiction and cast doubt on his remorse. They said there was little evidence Mizuhara frequently gambled before accessing Ohtani’s accounts and said his pleas for leniency were “self-serving and uncorroborated statements to the psychologist he hired for the purposes of sentencing."
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