Shohei Ohtani’s former translator has pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars from Shohei Ohtani to fuel his sports betting habit. The man who took bets from Ippei Mizuhara pleaded guilty to running an illegal betting operation.
Major League Baseball has completed its investigation into the matter. And the Dodgers are happy to see Ohtani put up Hall of Fame numbers at the plate.
But the federal criminal investigation targeting Mizuhara and Matthew Bauer, his Orange County bookie, and Ohtani who was cleared of any wrongdoing, continues even as MLB has been forced to deal with more banned gambling.
In Bowyer’s plea deal, prosecutors allege that two current or former gamblers bet with him. Meanwhile, MLB banned another player for life and suspended four others after they were caught betting on baseball, a crime that has been considered a mortal threat to the game since the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Matthew Bowyer, a Southern California bookmaker, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Santa Ana on August 9.
(Damián Dovarganes/Associated Press)
The league is likely to face accusations of illegal betting by players, especially since the sport’s partnership with legal betting companies has sent mixed signals about its disdain for betting. MLB insiders and sports ethics experts say the Mizuhara case is a case study in how to deal with such issues. They describe the episode as a fiasco with the public, since at some point Ohtani himself – prosecutors falsely claim – was linked to payments made in the world of betting.
Both the Dodgers and MLB were silent about their actions in the days before The Times broke the story about Ohtani’s name coming up in the federal investigation and theft charges against Mizuhara. In a statement to the newspaper earlier this month, league spokesman Glenn Caplin said that “as in other cases, MLB began its due diligence immediately upon learning of the media allegations.” Caplin declined to give further details.
After The Times began asking about the investigation in March, the Dodgers and MLB left it up to Ohtani’s agent and crisis public relations manager in New York to later address ESPN with the newspaper’s questions and similar questions.
ESPN reported that an anonymous spokesperson offered an interview to Ohtani Mizuhara, and an interpreter told ESPN that the player paid Mizuhara’s gambling debt to an illegal bookmaker. MLB prohibits players and other employees from betting on any sport with an illegal sportsbook. The rule does not specifically address the payment of other people’s debts under illegal conditions.
In the end, when ESPN was ready to publish the translator’s lawsuit, Ohtani was forced to take punishment with private investigator Mizuhara, who admitted to covering up the debts by stealing from the translator. Japanese slugger.
Several sports communications experts told the Times that MLB and the Dodgers should have tried to keep Ohtani out of such an awkward situation. This view was supported by Mizuhara’s guilty plea in federal court in June, admitting that he extorted nearly $17 million from Ohtani’s bank account transfers. But the lawsuit hasn’t stopped speculation on social media and elsewhere about whether fans have been told the full story.
Insiders and experts say MLB and the Dodgers have done harm to the institution of baseball and the fans who revere it, responding to inquiries from The Times and ESPN before Mizuhara’s allegations became public.
“It’s bad for baseball,” said Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School whose specialties include effective decision-making. “It’s bad for the Dodgers. “It’s definitely not good for Ohtani.”
“I understand why the Dodgers were shaking. They were probably really nervous that something bigger would explode on them,” said Sean Klein, a professor at Arizona State University whose work focuses on sports ethics.
“But transparency, honesty and sincerity is the right thing to do,” he said. “Otherwise, it seems like you are hiding something. And from an ethical point of view, it seems that you have broken faith with your fans. “
For Klein and others, the way the Mizuhara drama was handled reflects a long-standing pattern of teams taking a passive approach to player issues: Franchises typically turn to MLB or allow the players union or their personal representatives answer questions from the media about the issue. news. That’s especially true when Ohtani, the biggest name in baseball, commands a player, who left the Angels and was signed by the Dodgers to a record $700 million, 10-year contract.
The Times learned of Ohtani’s connection to the federal investigation in mid-March. After the newspaper began asking questions, Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo of Creative Agency, told Dodgers executives that his team told two sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Sources said the Dodgers were already consulting with Balelo and Mizuhara for public relations situations regarding Ohtani. It is unclear if or when Balelo informed the Dodgers that he had subpoenaed New York public relations manager Matthew Hiltzik to respond to the Times.
The news of Ohtani’s possible involvement in the investigation shocked MLB. A league official expressed surprise after learning of the Times report on the federal investigation and Ohtani’s firing.
The league has already been through tough times with Balelo and Hiltzik. They represented Ryan Braun when the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder was fighting accusations that he tested positive for illegal levels of testosterone in 2011. Brown appealed the finding, suggesting that the man who collected the test sample may have mishandled it. He won the petition and publicly thanked Balelo and Hiltzik for their support.
But later, Brown’s name appeared in the records of a clinic that distributed performance-enhancing drugs, and the player admitted to the “big mistake” of using a “banned substance.” He apologized to the sample collector and accepted the long suspension.
When Balelo and Hiltzik took over that week in March, the ESPN story took shape on Mizuhara’s allegations that Ohtani paid off gambling debts, ESPN said. Mizuhara, a Dodgers employee, gave the account in an ESPN interview arranged by an anonymous spokesperson, according to the outlet. And then the Dodgers called a meeting in the clubhouse where Mizuhara gave the same version of events to the players and staff.
Afterward, Ohtani said he was uncomfortable with Mizuhara’s words in the clubhouse, and in a meeting later that day at the team hotel, an interpreter admitted to him that he had stolen the money, according to court documents and the player’s statement. .
Mizuhara’s quick-witted federal prosecutors have gone to great lengths to allay suspicions that Ohtani might have known more about the translator’s associations with illegal gambling houses than has been revealed. However, there is no public explanation as to why Ohtani’s entourage did not do more to protect him than the unconfirmed story.
Scott Boras, the mega sports agent who wanted to represent Ohtani before the player signed with CAA, said that when Ohtani’s representatives learned that Mizuhara had admitted to playing illegally, he should not have been the source of any stories about Ohtani, and much less a negative one, which was not confirmed.
“I never allow an interpreter to go to the press,” Boras said. “Why should I believe everything he says? “I want him caught in the act.”
Stephen Fink, a veteran communications expert who has written several books on the subject, agreed that turning the story over to ESPN made no sense. “You don’t go public until you’re convinced of the facts,” said Fink, who lives in Southern California but has worked on public relations campaigns around the world, including the Soviet Union’s response to the reactor meltdown. Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.
“I don’t know anyone who would reveal a story unless they confirmed it was true,” he said.
Hiltzik declined to be interviewed or comment further. Balelo did not respond to requests for an interview or comment.
The Dodgers and MLB also declined to be interviewed or answer written questions from the Times about why they gave up on Balelo and Hiltzik and whether they knew about Mizuhara’s original account to ESPN before it was denied.
The Times first contacted Balelo on March 15 while the Dodgers were in Seoul, where the team was playing its season-opening series against the San Diego Padres. Balelo did not respond to a phone message or a follow-up email, but Hiltzik did respond on the agent’s behalf. The Dodgers have not been consulted about Hiltzik’s addition, according to two sources familiar with the team’s actions.
The Dodgers were taking charge at the time, including directly from Ohtani, said Don Hyder, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where his areas of focus include leadership and communication.
He admitted that if the team had questioned Ohtani, they might have been fooled by Mizuhara’s lies. But the Dodgers should have used more Japanese speakers on their staff and kept fans informed by making statements, Hyder added.
“Apparently no one is asking the hard questions,” he said.
For several days, Hiltzik did not respond to questions from the Times and finally said Ohtani had no comment.
On March 20, after the Dodgers beat the Padres in the season opener, team owner Mark Walter and other executives in a clubhouse meeting warned players about an upcoming story about Mizuhara. and his gambling debts. Mizuhara then told the crowd that Ohtani had paid the bet for him. Ohtani was at the meeting, but no one translated Mizuhara’s words for him.
According to several people who were present at the meeting, the atmosphere in the clubhouse went from celebrating the victory on the field to a seriousness bordering on sadness. While the referees were talking, some players were changing and others came out of the shower wrapped in towels, surprised to find such an unpleasant sight.
Like Ohtani’s outside advisers, the Dodgers apparently took Mizuhara’s word for Ohtani: the allegation that he funneled millions of dollars to an illegal bookmaker. The team did not immediately remove Mizuhara from the club or the roster; He translated for Ohtani shortly after the game when reporters asked the player about the game.
MLB policy prohibits illegal players like Mizuhara, who was a Dodgers employee, from betting on baseball or gambling illegally. One section states: “Any player, referee or official of a Club or League who bets with illegal bookmakers or agents of illegal bookmakers shall be subject to such sanction as the Commissioner considers appropriate having regard to the relevant facts and circumstances. of behavior.”
According to experts, the sudden change in Mizuhara’s score, which he stole from Ohtani, raised questions about his new story at the time, some of which still remain.
“Conflicting messages simply create more fodder and more intrigue,” said Schweitzer, the Wharton School professor. “You let social media and talking heads do the talking.”
Mizuhara and Bowyer are awaiting sentencing in federal court.
Times staff writers Jack Harris and Dylan Hernandez contributed to this report.
