Wildest details about Shohei Ohtani's interpreter from USA v Ippei Mizuhara complaint

If you've been invested in the ongoing saga surrounding Shohei Ohtani and former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, then you were fed well on Thursday afternoon. Federal authorities announced they were formally charging Mizuhara with theft on Wednesday evening and were negotiating a plea deal with him. The next morning, it was reported that the original estimate of $4.5 million in stolen money was actually upwards of $16 million.

Then, the US Department of Justice held a press conference to announce a formal complaint had been filed against Mizuhara and he would be charged with bank fraud. The 37-page complaint hit Twitter, Reddit, and so on immediately, with dedicated netizens combing through to find every screenshottable piece of information.

And those pieces are...really something. The report revealed a massive amount of money spent, lost, and owed, and painted a picture of Mizuhara as an awful gambler who couldn't stop.

Details from the formal complaint filed against fired Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani interpreter Ippei Mizuhara are a doozy

The complaint confirms Mizuhara didn't bet on baseball, but he did rack up a negative balance of over $40.7 million.

Mizuhara originally met bookmaker Mathew Bowyer in 2021 at a poker game and started betting with him shortly after. In Mizuhara's original interview with ESPN, he maintained that he never bet on baseball, which the complaint confirms. He said instead that he bet on basketball, professional football, and college football, but the report also includes copies of texts from Mizuhara that saw him admitting to betting on college soccer as well.

The bets placed ran an incredible gauntlet in terms of price — anywhere between $10 and $160,000 was put down per wager. All told, Mizuhara won around $142.3 million while losing $183 million, leaving him with a $40.7 million deficit. The figure federal authorities have been using is $16 million, but it seems that they have reason to believe that more might have been taken.

Mizuhara "swore on his mom" when asking for credit

Multiple pages outlining Mizuhara's text correspondence with an unnamed "Bookmaker 1" show him repeatedly begging for "bumps" in credit, and even messaging in November 2022, "I'm terrible at this sports betting thing huh? Lol..." before asking for more money and saying, "As you know, you don't have to worry about me not paying!!" to which we can only respond... oof.

In June 2023, he said, "I have a problem lol.... Can I get one last last last bump? This one is for real....Last one for real." Of course, Mizuhara continued to gamble until March 2024. In December 2022, he said, "I swear on my mom this will be the last ask before I pay it off once I get back to the states."

A bookmaker (maybe?) almost had a real life run-in with Ohtani.

In what probably could be read as a thinly-veiled ploy to force a response out of a potentially ghosting Mizuhara, Bookmaker 1 texted him to say that he saw Ohtani in person, walking his dog on Newport Beach, and planned to ask how to get in contact with Mizuhara if he didn't receive a response. Clearly, this must've provoked some kind of reaction about of Mizuhara, because a representative for Bowyer has said he "has never met or spoke with Shohei Ohtani."

Mizuhara confessed to the theft over text with a bookmaker.

"On or about" March 20, the day ESPN dropped their initial report about the situation, Mizuhara asked Bookmaker 1 if he had seen it. The bookmaker confirmed, but seemed to be ignorant to Mizuhara's theft and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Mizuhara responded, "Technically I did steal from him. it's all over for me." This is the last correspondence included in the complaint.

The complaint details how Mizuhara managed to steal money from Ohtani without notifying him.

Ohtani, identified as "Victim A" in the complaint, has faced a fair amount of skepticism as to how massive sums of money could be taken out of his account without his knowledge. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Mizuhara had changed certain settings to not alert Ohtani that money was being moved in his account, but the complaint takes it a step further. Investigators found that Mizuhara had logged into Ohtani's accounts on his own devices and was making transfers himself.

ESPN's original reporting found Ohtani's name on two separate wire transfers of $500,000, which are addressed in the complaint and confirmed to be carried out on Mizuhara's devices. It also revealed that Mizuhara is accused of impersonating Ohtani in phone conversations with bank employees in order to authorize wire transfers.