Within the clubhouse after the Los Angeles Dodgers gained their season opener in Seoul final month, Shohei Ohtani’s longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, made a surprising admission to the staff: He was a playing addict, and Ohtani had paid his money owed to a bookmaker.

Ohtani, who is just not fluent in English, listened however failed to totally grasp what Mizuhara mentioned. He knew sufficient to develop suspicious, nonetheless, and he wished solutions.

A few hours later, round midnight, Ohtani lastly had the prospect to drag Mizuhara right into a convention room within the basement of the Fairmont Ambassador Lodge in Seoul.

With simply the 2 of them there, Mizuhara leveled together with his boss: He had accrued huge money owed to the bookmaker and had been stealing the baseball star’s cash to pay them off.

In coming clear, although, Mizuhara made one final effort to guard himself from the legislation, in keeping with two individuals acquainted with the dialog, who requested for anonymity to debate a personal matter. He requested his patron to go together with the story that he had simply advised Ohtani’s teammates, his advisers and a reporter for ESPN who had made inquires about $4.5 million in wire transfers from Ohtani’s account to an unlawful bookmaker in California.

Ohtani refused and referred to as his agent, Nez Balelo, into the convention room. Balelo then had a number of different individuals dial in as they managed the disaster: a lawyer in Los Angeles; Matthew Hiltzik, a disaster communications govt in New York; and a brand new interpreter whom Ohtani’s inside circle may belief. Mizuhara’s spouse additionally joined the assembly.

Shortly after, Ohtani’s advisers issued a press release to reporters, alleging that Ohtani was the sufferer of a multimillion-dollar theft. Quickly headlines connecting Ohtani to unlawful playing unfold all over the world.

It was a narrative that may set off a dizzying three weeks, shifting from South Korea to Los Angeles, from ballparks to lodges to airports, to conferences with legal professionals and federal brokers. At instances, it appeared that baseball’s largest star was in peril of being tainted by a playing scandal, echoing painful episodes from the game’s previous. It culminated on Thursday when prosecutors charged Mizuhara with financial institution fraud and launched a prison criticism alleging a lavish embezzlement during which he stole $16 million from Ohtani, whom they firmly said was the sufferer within the case.

The formal cost and criticism have been introduced a day after The New York Instances reported that Mizuhara and his lawyer, Michael Freedman, a former prosecutor who focuses on white-collar prison protection, have been negotiating a plea deal. On Friday, Mizuhara surrendered to legislation enforcement in Los Angeles and made an preliminary courtroom look, carrying avenue garments and shackles. He didn’t enter a plea, and was launched on a $25,000 bond. The situations of his launch require him to undergo drug testing and search therapy for a playing habit.

Freedman issued a press release on Friday saying Mizuhara “is continuous to cooperate with the authorized course of and is hopeful that he can attain an settlement with the federal government to resolve this case as rapidly as doable in order that he can take accountability.” He added that Mizuhara apologized to Ohtani and the Dodgers and was “keen to hunt therapy for his playing.”

The journey to Seoul appeared like a triumphant moment for Major League Baseball. Ohtani’s emergence as a transcendent star in america, one whose on-field exploits evoked comparisons to Babe Ruth, had given the league recent cultural relevance all over the world. And now Ohtani and his new staff, which signed him to a 10-year, $700 million contract in December, have been in Asia to open a brand new season with two video games in opposition to the San Diego Padres. Pleasure couldn’t have been greater.

However as soon as the Mizuhara information broke, Main League Baseball realized it had an issue on its fingers. It introduced that it was investigating the matter. And the Los Angeles area workplaces of the Inside Income Service’s prison division and the Division of Homeland Safety uncharacteristically went public with information that they, too, had opened an inquiry. The saga of Pete Rose, the key leagues’ profession hits chief, who was barred from baseball within the Nineteen Eighties for betting on the game, was on everybody’s thoughts.

After the assembly on the resort, the Dodgers promptly fired Mizuhara. He was quickly on a aircraft again to Los Angeles, the place homeland safety brokers met him on the airport. He refused to undergo an interview, however he gave the brokers entry to a gold mine of data that may show essential to their investigation: He signed a type giving his consent to look his cellphone.

Ohtani additionally flew again to Los Angeles beneath a cloud. When he arrived, he gave investigators entry to his digital units, too.

Working with a Japanese linguist, investigators pored over about 9,700 pages of textual content messages between the 2 males and located no mentions of sports activities betting or any of the bookmakers Mizuhara had been coping with.

Over two days this month, Ohtani met with investigators in Los Angeles — on one of many days he hit his first home run as a Dodger, hours after an interview with the brokers — and described his relationship with Mizuhara, whom he first met in 2013 whereas enjoying skilled baseball in Japan.

The Los Angeles Angels employed Mizuhara as Ohtani’s translator when Ohtani joined the staff in 2018. However Ohtani additionally individually employed him as a “de facto supervisor and assistant,” in keeping with the criticism. Mizuhara drove his boss to and from the ballpark and managed sure “enterprise and private issues” outdoors baseball.

In 2018, each males visited a financial institution in Arizona, the place the Angels held spring coaching, and opened an account into which Ohtani’s paychecks may very well be deposited. For the following three years, Ohtani by no means as soon as logged into the account on-line, in keeping with prosecutors, and the cash piled up.

Ohtani has many different accounts, after all — he earns extra money from endorsements and enterprise offers than he does from his profitable baseball wage. However it was this account, solely for Ohtani’s baseball earnings, that Mizuhara would scheme to take management of after which, as he fell deeper right into a playing habit, pilfer for years, in keeping with prosecutors.

Mizuhara modified the settings of the account so alerts and confirmations of transactions would go to him, not Ohtani. Drawing on cellphone recordings obtained from the financial institution, prosecutors mentioned Mizuhara had additionally impersonated Ohtani to achieve the financial institution’s approval for sure massive transactions. And each time one among Ohtani’s different advisers — his agent, tax preparer, bookkeeper or monetary adviser, all of whom have been interviewed for the federal investigation — inquired concerning the account, Mizuhara advised them that Ohtani most well-liked the account to stay non-public.

Between November 2021 and January this yr, Mizuhara stole $16 million from the account to feed his “voracious urge for food for unlawful sports activities betting,” in keeping with E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. lawyer in Los Angeles.

Ohtani has been referred to as many issues over the previous few years. The fashionable-day Ruth. A baseball monk. Japan’s most well-known citizen. Within the prison criticism that the authorities launched on Thursday he was recognized merely as “Sufferer A.”

The criticism revealed textual content messages between Mizuhara and the bookmaker, who can be the topic of a federal investigation, as Mizuhara racked up losses and was repeatedly given will increase to his credit score restrict — “bumps,” within the parlance of gamblers.

A textual content from Mizuhara in 2022 reads: “I’m horrible at this sport betting factor huh? Lol … Any probability u can bump me once more?? As you realize, you don’t have to fret about me not paying.”

Whereas there is no such thing as a proof that Ohtani knew concerning the betting, the bookmaker knew of Mizuhara’s connection to Ohtani. Final November, the bookie was having bother reaching Mizuhara and threatened to show him to Ohtani, saying he knew the place to search out the baseball star.

In a textual content included within the criticism, the bookmaker wrote: “Hey Ippei, it’s 2 o’clock on Friday. I don’t know why you’re not returning my calls. I’m right here in Newport Seaside and I see [Victim A] strolling his canine. I’m simply gonna go up and speak to him and ask how I can get in contact with you because you’re not responding? Please name me again instantly.”

As Mizuhara fell deeper into debt, prosecutors say, he used $325,000 of Ohtani’s cash initially of this yr to purchase baseball playing cards on-line and had them shipped to the Dodgers clubhouse beneath a pseudonym. Brokers discovered the playing cards — of Juan Soto, Yogi Berra and Ohtani, amongst others — in a number of briefcases after they searched Mizuhara’s automobile. Prosecutors mentioned they believed he had deliberate to resell them.

This being a baseball story, the prison criticism was full of numbers:

• 19,000 bets.

• $142,256,769.74 whole profitable bets.

• $182,935,206.58 whole shedding bets.

Crucially, for Ohtani and for Main League Baseball, prosecutors mentioned none of Mizuhara’s bets had been on baseball.

When information of the story broke in South Korea, Main League Baseball was alarmed by the shifting narratives, two individuals acquainted with the matter mentioned, and nervous that Ohtani may one way or the other be entangled in a playing scandal that had the potential to tarnish the complete sport.

These worries dissipated per week later when Ohtani supplied an in depth account to reporters at Dodger Stadium, saying Mizuhara stole from him and pledging to cooperate with any investigations. Baseball officers have been uncertain, the individuals mentioned, that Ohtani would make up such a narrative figuring out that each the federal authorities and the league would examine it. When the authorities charged Mizuhara and detailed the allegations in opposition to him, any remaining suspicions have been cleared.

As for the Dodgers, they’re main their division early in a season that many followers will declare a failure if it doesn’t finish with a championship. Ohtani’s bat is heating up. Contained in the clubhouse, gamers say Ohtani, with out Mizuhara as a buffer, has made extra of an effort to get to know his teammates.

“You realize, the final couple of days, I feel Shohei has been much more partaking together with his teammates,” Dave Roberts, the Dodgers’ supervisor, advised reporters after Ohtani addressed the matter for the information media in Los Angeles two weeks in the past. “And I feel there’s solely upside with that.”

Ana Facio-Krajcer contributed reporting.