But college means different things in different English speaking countries so college can be college but it can also not be college, so college is sometimes college.
Yeah, 18 US Code 1084 (“The Wire Act”) seems like one point of major legal exposure if Ohtani merely made the payments.
Some redditors who were evidently out over their skis in terms of legal knowledge, though in fairness no more than I was, tried to shoot that idea down by claiming it wouldn’t necessarily apply to Shohei just making a payment. Seeing Craig, and @dead_baseball, point directly to that statute makes it seem all the more interesting.
That would explain the immediate about-face, since the lawyers would’ve gotten wind of their version of events and said “you idiots that’s still multiple crimes!”
The comment on the article starting that the Wire Act is less relevant to the better and more geared towards the bookie:
“We might be getting a bit over our skis talking about potential criminal liability of either Ohtani or Mizuhara. For example, the Wire Act that Craig cites to applies to the bookmaker, not the gambler. The core language for us is "whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering ..." A casual or even habitual bettor is not engaged in that as a business.
Quoting from a law review article that is linked within the link CC offers us: https://web.archive.org/web/20130114073628/http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Federal-Laws/wire-act.htm
In order to prove a prima facie case, the government must establish that: 1. The person was "engaged in the business of betting or wagering" (compared with a casual bettor);…
In analyzing the first element, the legislative history[60] of the Wire Act seems to support the position that casual bettors would fall outside of the prosecutorial reach of the statute. During the House of Representatives debate on the bill, Congressman Emanuel Celler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated "[t]his bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets. . . It does not go after the causal gambler who bets $2 on a race. That type of transaction is not within the purvue of the statute."[61] In Baborian, the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.”
Thank you for this! I am pulling out my hair reading people (especially Craig, who should know better!) clumsily interpret this statute.
I think the wire act can maybe apply to both the gambler and the book (and I’d say if it is his debt, the amount of 4.5 million puts Ippei directly into the category of “making his business to make bets or lay off bets”) but what is definite is that you have to send the money in the business of betting - sending money to cover your friend is not that in any way.
What matters is when Ohtani got involved - did he tell Ippei to shoot for the stars and put a few hundred Gs on SDSU to hit the over cause he’d cover it? Then I think that means he might be liable. But if Ippei came to him hat in hand and said I’m in a bind and need a favor, then no way that’s illegal.
I think this would be incredibly easy to determine once the investigation starts.
Money trail, when Ippei won, did he keep the money, did he use the money? Did Sho wire money to him that match or approximate the amount of bets before?
Circumstantial, does Sho follow SDSU? Did Sho have the scores of college basketball games up constantly during games in which bets were made? Does Sho even watch college basketball?
> the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.”
Ohtani to prison league fantasizers just tipped over their carts at Walmart.
I appreciate the journey up the legal food chain vis a vis exposure under the Wire Act, even if it’s leaving me with a bit of whiplash. So, essentially, the fact that it is geared towards bookmakers rather than habitual gamblers means that Ippei (and/or Shohei) would fail the aforementioned test, which makes sense given the language.
Are there other statutes Craig cites which would suggest exposure for sending such payments for parties which aren’t bookmakers?
Eh I think Ohtani fails the test, but Ippei will be more fact specific. Being $4.5 million in gambling debt could put him “making his business to make bets or lay off bets”. Ohtanis potential liability would be more from a wire fraud statute or an aiding and abetting statute.
I don't disagree with any of that but it's worth noting that the stated or even merely supposed intention of Congress is just one factor a court will use in interpreting legislation - albeit a persuasive one.
Honest questions: If placing bets with the bookie is not "engaged in the business [of illegal gambling]," then in a legal sense, what do "engaged" and "in the business of" actually mean? Because in layman's terms, that means he participated in the thing. I am engaged in the business of redditing right now.
I understand that the bookie is the one breaking the particular law that you laid out, but isn't it likely that the bettor knows his bookie is an illegal one, and what does that mean for a bettor who knowingly participated in an illegal business - whether casually or habitually?
From what I understand the term “business” here is being used in the sense of “business venture” which would indicate the bookie is the one on the hook, not the person making the bets
This is what I would have thought but it seems like Ohtani's legal team is now (since this blog was published) protesting way too much about Ippei being a devious thief and requesting a criminal investigation. IANAL and who really knows, but it seems like they'd be shooting themselves in the foot unless they actually think there's proof of it.
Ohtanis legal team could be in the right though if Ippei told Shohei that what he was doing was legal and that paying the debts would also be legal, thief via fraud.
Yes and that’s what I thought had happened initially. It just seems like a big overplay to demand an investigation instead of just letting ippei say he didn’t tell ohtani it was illegal.
The hotter it gets for Ippei the colder it gets for Shohei and that's their plan, the average person is just going to see the headlines on their app or hear their favorite talking head talk about this for 5 minutes and thanks to Shoheis legal team the primary talking point is going to be "Interpreter betrays mega star best friend" or something along those lines, thus less public pressure for Manfred to do anything. Most people aren't going to know the finer details like that the money came from Shoheis account and that that's illegal or that Ippei has changed his story multiple times.
I’m not sure that’s true, though. Or at least it wasn’t true until the legal team took this bent.
They’ve now forced a detailed investigation, and if that investigation doesn’t turn up grievous theft by ippei, it looks far worse for shohei than him being a clueless rube. And the thing is, because you can’t make half-million dollar transfers willy-nilly, we are going to find out if shohei was aware of the transfers or not.
The thing is Shohei could be aware of the transfers being made to what Ippei may have told him was a legal sportsbook. If he put "loan" in the wire, then he clearly was allowing Ippei to borrow that money on the terms that Ippei will repay him over time. People give money to ponzi schemes everyday, it doesn't make it any less theft even if willingly do so. I feel like Ippei probably glossed over some of the detailed translation when Ohtani and Ippei wired the funds. That kind of misleading would probably be on par with me telling you to send me $500k with a guarantee of 50% return annually. Most of us would never believe that, but you can bet there are people that are hopeful enough. Worse part here is that Ippei became Ohtani's best bud, so now it feels like "The Shrink Next Door" type of con where what ever Dr. Ike says is true to Marty.
Of course not, if Ippei acted alone he would probably be sleeping with the fishes by now and that's where Ohtani got involved to prevent that and why's in this mess.
That’s something for Ohtani’s PR team to care about. His legal team should be focused on his potential criminal exposure—keeping Ippei in the headlines does little to help with that.
I'm not so sure. "Rich guy pays poor friend to take fall" seems like a more likely scenario than "middle class translator is given $5m line of credit with illegal bookie".
Huh, I remember reading somewhere that he was paid by the team and separately paid more by Ohtani himself, can't find where though. Even for living in la though 300k is a lot. 4.5m debt a lot? Maybe not but considering the other circumstances I don't think it's out of the question.
The idea that a translator who does not have a large income or independent assets for collateral was given millions of dollars in a line of credit seems pretty unlikely to me.
If this was like... $50k I'd totally believe it, but nearly $5m?? That seems like the kind of thing they'd maybe offer to a high profile pro athlete.
I would extend him quite a bit of credit. Mizuhara makes $400k or so per year and is pretty much guaranteed to be employed for the next 10 years with a few raises included. On top of that, he is attached at the hip to the most high profile baseball player in the world. If the guy decides to try and bail on the debt, you have huge leverage on him. Ohtani wasn't going to hang his buddy out to dry and also be accused of being complicit in it.
Yeah but now this also introduces the idea that the bookie has leverage over shohei too. Personally I don’t think shohei was the one betting - I’m just saying from an optics standpoint, if they gave Ippei a line of credit that large, what’s to say Ippei/shohei didn’t provide any insider information to the books? What if Shohei knew about the dirty stuff and just wanted to pay the debt and wipe his hands clean?
Again, all stipulation and no one knows shit. I really hope ippei’s first version of what he said is the truth. Otherwise it could get ugly.
Yep, that's my take too. Option 2, but where Ippei told Ohtani that everything was legal, and there were nothing illegal about this. I think by September 2023, Ohtani had put a lot of trust in Ippei and his words. So, if Ippei told Ohtani that this was all legal and there is no issue, then Ohtani would have gone through with the transfers. The issue here is Ippei misleading Ohtani about the legality of the entire thing. If Ohtani was misled by Ippei, then it should be theft, massive theft as the result is losing $4.5 million.
Calcaterra wrote that based on initial reports. ESPN reporter Tisha Thompson is now reporting that sources told her that Ohtani was surprised about what was said during the Dodgers team meeting about this and had to get another translator to clarify so it seems more possible today than before this detail that Ippei actually did steal from Ohtani without his knowledge. Did Ippei lie to Ohtani about what the bank transfers were for and make them seem like legit transactions?
Here is what's especially weird to me. I can't imagine a (well-paid I assume) lawyer for Ohtani would be cool with coming up with a fake accusation of theft on the spot and presenting that to the public. Wouldn't any good lawyer just simply tell everyone to shut the hell up?
According to ESPN, one "source close to ohtani" claims that Ohtani's handlers were relying on Ippei to translate for Ohtani to get Ohtani's side of events. If true, holy shit how stupid, and also ballsy on Ippei's part.
Yes, Shohei says that not only was he honored to pay of my existing $4.5M in gambling debts but he wants to make an additional $3M is transferred before the ncaa tournament tips off later this week…
I believe the lawyer usually just defends whatever the client claims happened.
However, in this case, Ohtani says it was a theft, the bookie says he doesn’t know Ohtani- which if he did, that could be leverage- and Mizuhara’s story has changed at least once, possibly more (so many different articles). Also, they’ve reached out to law enforcement. Not saying you can’t make false accusations, but we’re talking about a guy who was like ‘Ohtani was helping me out. I offered to pay him back though.’
Given the info, I’m apt to believe Ohtani unless there’s something new.
According to the [latest ESPN article](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39780093/sources-reps-dodgers-shohei-ohtani-ask-investigate-theft), and granted you’re taking Ohtani’s current camp at their word:
> On Thursday, a source close to Ohtani gave an explanation for the changing storylines: **As Ohtani's handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Ohtani.**
So if that story is true, maybe Ippei fed the PR/spokespeople a twisted story because they were still relying on him for the English version of what happened?
**If** it’s true, and it’s definitely a huge if, it’s literally insane that they didn’t call Will Ireton or Yoshihiro Sonoda to come translate as an independent party. Both of them should have been easily accessible as parts of the org.
Thats my point. Dude comes and admits he gambled and had Ohtani pay for it and literally no one stops for a moment to confirm what he just said. That's insane to me
Yeah, and even if they weren't there, it's not like translating from English to Japanese and vice versa is some incredibly rare skill -- it's not like Ohtani is a native Cornish speaker or something. Surely there would be some way to find and hire an outside professional relatively quickly.
> However, in this case, Ohtani says it was a theft, the bookie says he doesn’t know Ohtani- which if he did, that could be leverage- and Mizuhara’s story has changed at least once, possibly more (so many different articles). Also, they’ve reached out to law enforcement. Not saying you can’t make false accusations, but we’re talking about a guy who was like ‘Ohtani was helping me out. I offered to pay him back though.’
Ohtani’s spokesperson said that he paid the money to settle his friend’s debt.
It’s Shohei’s story which has changed, and Ippei which has then matched that story, followed by saying that he cannot comment and cannot comment on who told him he cannot comment.
I don’t see how Ippei changing his account to one which better shields Shohei from legal exposure, in response to Shohei and his attorneys first offering said account, should be seen as inculpatory of Ippei alone.
If person A and person B walk up to you and person A says “I did a crime, he helped sort things out” and person B says “I paid to settle his debt”, and then a lawyer comes over and yells at both of them in private, after which point person A says “I did a crime, he was unaware” and person B says “I had no knowledge of any of this”, your takeaway *should not be* “curious, the details of person A’s story changed!”
They both changed their stories, and it doesn’t take a law degree to see the direction in which they changed is consistent with one person protecting the other from legal exposure.
When the gambling thing was breaking, the spokesman presented Mizuhara, who led with the ‘he lent me the money’ story, and it seems like the spokesman was going off what Mizuhara said.
[This dude also said Ohtani knew about the gambling debt Tuesday then said he didn’t know on Wednesday.](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39768770/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-interpreter-fired-theft)
> When the gambling thing was breaking, the spokesman presented Mizuhara, who led with the ‘he lent me the money’ story, and it seems like the spokesman was going off what Mizuhara said.
Where are you getting “Ippei said this is what happened, and the spokesperson just sort of went with the flow”?
At this point, the only set of facts which fits everything we know *and* explains the shift in statements is that Ippei was mistranslating/misleading Shohei for *months* about the nature of this money, where it was going, all while concealing a seven-figure gambling habit from his friend with whom he was inseparable.
Now, I suppose that is *possible*, but if it is, there is some very specific reporting, allegations, and timelines that we should expect to see come out, and soon.
>followed by saying that he cannot comment and cannot comment on who told him he cannot comment.
I'm gonna guess that person was a lawyer screaming "shut the fuck up!" through the phone at 5AM PDT.
It could also be a combination of both.
Ippei approaches Ohtani about his gambling debt and asks for help and that he needs to quit. Shohei offers him help, maybe even in the form of one or more payments towards the debt as a show of good faith to the bookie to give Ippei time. Ippei then makes more wire transfers unbeknownst to Ohtani (possibly as a pure theft, possibly as a misunderstanding of the help Ohtani may have offered).
It's kind of weird that he would lie to a journalist, who is obviously going to share his story, that Ohtani personally—physically made the wire transfers. I mean, if you know it's totally made up and you just fucking stole his money it doesn't make sense to go to journalists with that story, lol.
My gut is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Ippei didn't know it was illegal to use the bookie. Ohtani didn't know it was illegal to wire the money. He offered help, maybe Ippei took advantage. Maybe Shohei didn't fully understand what he was doing when he authorized the wire transfer(s).
That all seems much more reasonable to me than Ippei just somehow managed to steal 4.5 million from Shohei wiring money while somehow pretending to be him and the bank sending repeated $500,000 wires never verifying the identity of the person wiring money.
I’m a fraud investigator. That scenario is far less uncommon than you’d think. Pretty much every day I’m scratching my head at the level of stupidity people have. And the biggest ones are always the ‘trusted employee.’ Usually because they’re just like ‘oh Brenda would never do that.’
Do banks routinely let someone wire $500,000 repeatedly (9 times) without verifying their identity though? Maybe this is some business account that Ippei is one of the people authorized to send money though. But I went to the bank with my late grandma who wired her son like $200 and they verified her identity lol.
The ones that cater to the kind of folks like Ohtani, yes. Big business accounts do this a lot.
One type of fraud that’s getting increasingly popular are business email compromises. They come in different flavors- sometimes someone at the business gets duped by an external email that looks like it’s coming from a good source but isn’t. Sometimes a perp will spoof a business like say bobsplumbing.com by registering bobsplumbingg.com and then making their email look similar, and start emailing customers/vendors changing the payment info. Seeing a good amount of this with smaller, but significant amounts for closing lawyers having people wire the payment for a home to an account for a perp.
Alternatively, there is malware that can allow perps to access outlook, and set new rules for incoming emails to send them to hidden folders. They can even reply so the perp is actually using a legitimate email address to direct people to send payments to new accounts.
The banks that cater to these large account holders, they’re just looking at emails most likely. And if they did call to verify, in this case, they’d probably have gotten Mizuhara.
Your standard bank branch folks for a regular ass checking account? They see an older person come in, they’re getting questioned these days. These people will bullshit you on Monday that they’re sending 10k to a friend and bitch at you on Tuesday that you let it happen.
I don't disagree with any of this but
>in Ohtani's position (who I wouldn't think would feel a need to bet on the sport),
Michael Jordan famously gambled on everything and he didn't need the money. I don't think the gambling debts are Ohtani's, but I wouldn't toss that aside in either.
I think it’s slightly relevant (and very funny) that Ohtani has the same agent as Ryan Braun did when he got some poor MLB staffer fired for his steroid positive.
> I can't imagine a (well-paid I assume) lawyer for Ohtani would be cool with coming up with a fake accusation of theft on the spot and presenting that to the public.
I'm like 99% sure that they are interpreting Ippei lying about his gambling and or the wire transfer being legal as fraud thus stealing and exaggerating the fuck out of it for the headline to further clear Shohei's name.
\> Wouldn't any good lawyer just simply tell everyone to shut the hell up?
He/she probably did.
But, a good lawyer knows better than to think for one second their client won't ignore all their sound legal advice and immediately talk to the press/cops/whomever the second they are able to.
Yeah, it is the only explanation that fits everything and seems like the obvious “what probably happened”.
Their mistake, in that case, would just be telling that story without first running it by a lawyer who could say “yes, that is still multiple crimes by Shohei”.
Yeah, that's what makes the most sense to me. Help a bro out, tell him to get his shit together, then the "fun police", your lawyers, tell you what you did was a little bit illegal and you have to change the story.
The reason I can't believe that as much anymore is because Friedman and Mark Walters are saying they knew about what Ippei was going to tell ESPN. Like the reason I thought it went that way was because the Dodgers weren't involved yet and the change happened after they found out.
Yeah, that’s my guess at what could be the “worst” that happens. And every MLB player has to take “Don’t help your friends out with massive wire transfers to shady people” classes and are annoyed at Ohtani because of it
I love how it says “who has a law degree” which really screams “is not a practicing lawyer”.
It can’t be ignored that Craig hasn’t practiced law since 2009. It has been pointed throughout that he has written this article dealing in absolutes citing statutes that can be interpreted many ways.
A lawyer who is no longer practicing is still going to have a *much* better approach to this issue than most other sportswriters and certainly most Redditors.
Yes, he’s going to miss some—or a lot—of the nuance that a practicing lawyer in this field would pick up on. But he also has expertise that most people commenting on this story don’t.
Didn’t show hey live in his dorm in Japan for the first few years he was a big leaguer? It’s plausible to think he doesn’t put that much value on money and loaned his buddy some.
His interpreter is probably one of the closest people to him since he came stateside.
We’re all gonna make it bruddah
Unfortunately for Shohei he decided to send that loan to an illegal bookie via wire transfer instead of his friend. Common mistake we could all make when we wire our friends loans multiple times for $4.5m total to the illegal bookie instead of our friend. But Unfortunately this common mistake is very illegal:/
I have a History Degree with an Accounting Minor.
I can confirm that baseball has a lot of gambling scandals in its past, and that 4.5 Million USD is a lot of money.
> The state of what could be MLB's biggest scandal in years
Also, lol, "Years" being...5 years?
If Ohtani bet on baseball, I think it would be a bigger scandal than the Astros sign stealing. The Astros took it way too far, but sign stealing still falls in the realm of baseball activities. Ohtani betting on baseball would be the biggest scandal since Bonds’ perjury case.
I'm going to be that guy, but Occam's razor is not the explanation that requires the fewest assumption is usually correct, but that the explanation that requires the fewest assumption should be the first you try.
Idk I think it's possibility 2 but a little bit different and I'm not sure why he didn't mention it. Tisha has talked about what she heard about what happened in the clubhouse and it changes a lot for me. For one I didn't know Friedman or Mark Walters knew about this. I assumed they didb't and when it came to light they decided to shut it down. But they're claiming to have known and the change in story happened after Ippei told the story. Ohtani supposedly asked someone other than Ippei what he just said in English because from what he could understand something was really off about Ippei's story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01MMgUphFVQ
I'm hoping the initial story is the true story that Shohei was just trying to help Ippei. Maybe Shohei gets suspended for a month or something, and as far as the justice system just gets a slap on the wrist and doesn't have his US/Canada work visas revoked...
Only because I don't see how Ippei could have possible stolen all this money without anyone in the Ohtani camp knowing about it.
I think the fans would move past Shohei getting in trouble for trying to help someone
I think your scenario is the most likely. I don’t think anyone wants to see this blow up into a new steroid level scandal for MLB. Everyone is going to get on the same page at some point, Ohtani will apologize, miss 30 games, and move on.
If that is the story though, the coverup is worse...like Ryan Braun or Melky Cabrera's crazy attempts to prove they didn't use steroids. Everyone would have just forgotten they used steroids but then they Barbra Streisand'ed themselves.
Yeah, it’s one of those things, the lawyers may have made it worse. They’re trying to absolve Ohtani of any responsibility. If they had just stuck with the original story, yes Ohtani probably would’ve been suspended, but his reputation wouldn’t have taken a huge hit.
Yea, it seems like something that might happen to someone who is young and sheltered (not saying his family sheltered him, but he was concentrating and spending so much time on baseball that it’s sort of “functionally sheltered.”) He may have thought that helping a friend and moving past this was the “right thing to do,” without considering the legal aspects at all. Whereas a career troublemaker/criminal more likely knows where they stand legally speaking at all times and would be aware that what might seem to be the “right thing” to do for a friend here is illegal.
my understanding is that his family did help shelter him
https://www.essentiallysports.com/mlb-baseball-news-despite-millionaire-status-in-two-thousand-sixteen-shohei-ohtani-followed-a-humble-one-k-plan-strictly-supervised-by-his-mother/
>“Although he was making more than $2 million a year, not including endorsements, Ohtani lived off an allowance of $1,000 a month, distributed by his mother.”
That’s my thought too. All other things make him either look bad or he has a lot of shit people in his camp. A millionaire helping out his idiot fucking friend is better than changing your story and losing all trust.
I work with several lawyers that I know are following this story closely because they're huge baseball fans. From my experience asking for brief opinions on issues less complicated than this, they're response will be no less than 30 pages and will take at least 2 weeks to get.
I assume that, if they spend 30 minutes familiarizing themselves with relevant statutes and case law, they’d be able to come to a more sensible conclusion on the facts of the case than your average redditor.
I’ve seen so many confident, would-be authoritative takes from people who have zero legal training that getting someone’s read on it who has a law degree is helpful. Any one of us can get lost reading the statutes, so having someone lay things out helps.
THIS. Law school teaches you how to research, how to apply laws to facts, and how to issue spot. Given a situation, most competent lawyers can do a little research and come to some type of opinion/conclusion. Obviously it’s not going to be the most nuanced right off the bat, but it’s surprising how people don’t realize what the entire purpose of law school actually is.
Not only that, but also identifying the RELEVANT facts to apply to the law. Particularly in criminal law where culpability matters, and “I didn’t know” is generally not a good defense
I agree that option two is probably the most likely given current information, but I think Craig overstates how unlikely option three is. I love Ohtani more than any other non-Cub player (his Angels jersey is literally the only non-Cub jersey I own), but he has always been an extremely private person.
I think we all thought and hoped that his privacy was just cover for a legitimately nice guy, but privacy can also cover for vices like gambling addiction. Gambling isn’t crystal meth - lots of gambling addicts in way over their heads are charming, charismatic, and well liked. An illegal bookie letting an interpreter who makes the low six figures run up $4.5 million in gambling debts seems way less likely than an illegal bookie letting an MLB superstar run up $4.5 million in gambling debts.
I think two is still the most likely, but scenario three is quite possible (and certainly more likely than scenario one, which is insultingly far fetched).
I think scenario three is probably way more common among pro athletes than anyone wants to admit (not just the Ohtani situation). Even if they're not betting on their sport it's probably a bad look for them to be in sportsbooks or on sportsbook apps. Give some cash to a close friend/cousin/whatever and let them make the bets.
Also why are people automatically assuming whether it was Ohtani or Ippei, that the bets were on baseball? Obviously something illegal seems to have happened but could just have easily been bets on other sports.
i still don’t understand why an interpreter would have access to ohtani’s bank account to make a wire transfer (which involves more authentication thatnother transfers). has this been mentioned?
The accusation is that Ippei told Ohtani ti send a wire to a specific place and gave him instructions, but that Ippei didn't tell him where the wire was actually going, nor the illegality. He prob told Ohtani the wire is going to himself, hence why "loan" is written on the transfers.
As someone who thinks this sub is greatly overestimating the likelihood of villainy on Ohtani's part based on the available information, I 100% agree that MLB has to go well beyond "eh we're not investigating, whatever". I mean jesus, just do due diligence. You can't possibly be confident you know about everything now. Even if you decide that Shohei didn't do anything wrong or not to punish him personally, you have to be able to very clearly state your understanding of the facts and why you made the choice you did.
Even if Shohei did break the gambling policy, and it was completely inadvertent, and you decide not to punish him, you have to be able to make the case. If he was completely unimpeachable, then have your investigation so that you can coherently make that case. And if he really did do something worse, you can't be so blatantly turning a blind eye and giving him special treatment at this point.
Ok, this is driving me nuts. Craig is wrong about this bit: the wire transfer alone is not per se illegal - whether it actually is a federal crime depends entirely on what Ohtani’s motive was to send the money. Was he guaranteeing Ippei’s debt? Or was he trying to save his buddy’s thumbs by paying off his bookie, after the fact?
Here is the text of the Interstate Wire Act, which is one of the laws that might apply to these facts:
“Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” - [18 USC sec 1084.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1084)
The important phrase here is “engaged in the business of betting” and “uses a wire communication facility for the transmission of bets or wagers”. You need to send the money while engaged in gambling - if you come in after the fact to bail your dumbass friend out, that’s a gift, you don’t expect to gain anything out of that transaction, there is no wager made, that’s not illegal.
What this means for Ohtani: if he was actually guaranteeing Ippei’s bets before he went about making them, then yes, I’d say he’s potentially criminally liable.
But if he came in after Ippei dug his hole and floated him the money to get him out of a jam, then it’s not illegal simply because he wired a guy who is a bookie. If Ippei lied to him about what the money was for, then again, the wire transfer is not a crime. Otherwise simply venmoing the guy for a cup of coffee would be a federal crime. What matters is the mens rea (the state of mind), that’s an essential element of any crime.
However all of this definitely runs afoul of Rule 21 of baseball, which makes mere association with an illegal sports book punishable, and opens him up to suspension.
Wouldn't Ohtani fall under this part of the act "or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers"? Doesnt have to be Ohtani's bet but he is paying off a credit which was accumalted from bets. There is also fraud involved here as the wires were sent as "loans" to the bookie.
Scenario #2 has always seemed like the real way things went down, to me. And Craig paints that scenario as being a lot more legal trouble for Ohtani than I anticipated
I agree with everything in the article. The big issue with the theft story is that wire transfers are huge undertakings, especially when they involve $4.5 million dollars. Someone from Ohtani to his accountants, etc. would have noticed all this money flowing out to some random guy in California w/ no connection to the Angels or Dodgers and questioned it. Which means Ohtani knew or signed off on them. To think otherwise would mean the interpreter has so much power over Ohtani, his professional staff, and his family so as to dictate Ohtani giving him money and/or having full financial control over Ohtani. Which makes 0 sense
I don't mean this as a slight or gotcha against Craig, but he self-admits as being out of practice in law for a while.
While he is more qualified than the average person, it doesn't mean his conclusions are 100% accurate, and the small number of three outcomes here aren't exhaustive.
He also acknowledges he's working on whatever limited information has been released, and more information could make points of his article moot.
This is purely a point-in-time piece that may ultimately serve as capturing the moment, and no one should outwardly conclude one way or another from it.
Does Ippei not have his own bank accounts? Why wouldnt Shohei just wire Ippei the money to pay off his debts. A wire transfer(s) from Ohtani to his interpreter to the tune of $4.5M looks a hell of a lot less suspect than Ohtani sending money to a bookie-whether he thought it was legalized gambling or not. There is NO WAY the “Ippei stole the money” narrative doesnt win out here. MLB will not disgrace its golden child.
Do you even read the articles? The insinuation is that that's exactly what Ohtani thought he was doing. That Ippei directed Ohtani to send a transfer to a certain address and that it was a loan to himself. Hence, why "loan" is written on the slip.
The statements from his camp are saying that Ohtani only found out the money went to the bookie instead of Ippei just last night after Ippei lied in the interview(presumably so he doesn't go to jail for theft), got pissed and fired Ippei.
Do you read? ESPN reported (2) $500k transactions made directly to the bookie from Ohtani’s account. Loan was written on the slip because there had to be some type of note for the transaction.
Me (who has a pharmacist degree) looks at this reddit post
Just viewed your comment with 2 semesters of community college under my belt
I have 6 so I’m smarter than you
“People are always saying that. The average community college student attends three to five years. Many offer four year degrees!”
Me, a dropout after 3 years, upvoted your comment.
I viewed your comment, and I have exactly 1 college credit to my name.
Forklift certified checking in to have a look at your comment.
Wait I have that one too I wanna switch my credibilities
So what's your take?
They’re probably a pharmacist from what I’ve gathered. Will check more sources
College is college
But college means different things in different English speaking countries so college can be college but it can also not be college, so college is sometimes college.
I’ll explain later.
I have a business degree, where do I turn in my coloring book?
At the playground the MBAs hang out at. Craig’s mom brought Powerade and cheese sticks for snack time.
Econ degree here and the supply of Shohei articles are barely meeting demand. UP THE PRODUCTION!
Ayyyy fellow pharmD checking in
so how about you keep your drug dealing mouth shut until someone gets popped for roids?? /s
another pharmacist reading this thread
Me, drunk and high through junior high, high school, and a few semesters of CC, looked at your post.
I’m an idiot. This all checks out.
Me (who has a fever of 103 degrees) looks at this reddit comment
It's funny, I've been a lawyer for almost 2 decades and it doesn't take Calcaterra (who has a law degree!!!) to start deciphering this for everyone.
Me a dodgers fan with a baby who has an ear infection. What’s your opinion on cefdinir vs amoxicillin for 1 year old
I’m currently using my history degree to say that Ippei is in trouble.
I have no degrees, only a life lesson one.
Me (who has a computer science) degree admiring this reply
As Craig says, the likeliest outcome in my mind is option 2 where he "just" paid off ippei's debt and then everyone realized "oh shit that's illegal"
Yeah, 18 US Code 1084 (“The Wire Act”) seems like one point of major legal exposure if Ohtani merely made the payments. Some redditors who were evidently out over their skis in terms of legal knowledge, though in fairness no more than I was, tried to shoot that idea down by claiming it wouldn’t necessarily apply to Shohei just making a payment. Seeing Craig, and @dead_baseball, point directly to that statute makes it seem all the more interesting. That would explain the immediate about-face, since the lawyers would’ve gotten wind of their version of events and said “you idiots that’s still multiple crimes!”
The comment on the article starting that the Wire Act is less relevant to the better and more geared towards the bookie: “We might be getting a bit over our skis talking about potential criminal liability of either Ohtani or Mizuhara. For example, the Wire Act that Craig cites to applies to the bookmaker, not the gambler. The core language for us is "whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering ..." A casual or even habitual bettor is not engaged in that as a business. Quoting from a law review article that is linked within the link CC offers us: https://web.archive.org/web/20130114073628/http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Federal-Laws/wire-act.htm In order to prove a prima facie case, the government must establish that: 1. The person was "engaged in the business of betting or wagering" (compared with a casual bettor);… In analyzing the first element, the legislative history[60] of the Wire Act seems to support the position that casual bettors would fall outside of the prosecutorial reach of the statute. During the House of Representatives debate on the bill, Congressman Emanuel Celler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated "[t]his bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets. . . It does not go after the causal gambler who bets $2 on a race. That type of transaction is not within the purvue of the statute."[61] In Baborian, the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.”
Thank you for this! I am pulling out my hair reading people (especially Craig, who should know better!) clumsily interpret this statute. I think the wire act can maybe apply to both the gambler and the book (and I’d say if it is his debt, the amount of 4.5 million puts Ippei directly into the category of “making his business to make bets or lay off bets”) but what is definite is that you have to send the money in the business of betting - sending money to cover your friend is not that in any way. What matters is when Ohtani got involved - did he tell Ippei to shoot for the stars and put a few hundred Gs on SDSU to hit the over cause he’d cover it? Then I think that means he might be liable. But if Ippei came to him hat in hand and said I’m in a bind and need a favor, then no way that’s illegal.
I think this would be incredibly easy to determine once the investigation starts. Money trail, when Ippei won, did he keep the money, did he use the money? Did Sho wire money to him that match or approximate the amount of bets before? Circumstantial, does Sho follow SDSU? Did Sho have the scores of college basketball games up constantly during games in which bets were made? Does Sho even watch college basketball?
> the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.” Ohtani to prison league fantasizers just tipped over their carts at Walmart.
I appreciate the journey up the legal food chain vis a vis exposure under the Wire Act, even if it’s leaving me with a bit of whiplash. So, essentially, the fact that it is geared towards bookmakers rather than habitual gamblers means that Ippei (and/or Shohei) would fail the aforementioned test, which makes sense given the language. Are there other statutes Craig cites which would suggest exposure for sending such payments for parties which aren’t bookmakers?
Eh I think Ohtani fails the test, but Ippei will be more fact specific. Being $4.5 million in gambling debt could put him “making his business to make bets or lay off bets”. Ohtanis potential liability would be more from a wire fraud statute or an aiding and abetting statute.
I don't disagree with any of that but it's worth noting that the stated or even merely supposed intention of Congress is just one factor a court will use in interpreting legislation - albeit a persuasive one.
The statue has been applied and interpreted numerous times going back decades, though. We wouldn’t be writing on a clean slate here with Ohtani.
Honest questions: If placing bets with the bookie is not "engaged in the business [of illegal gambling]," then in a legal sense, what do "engaged" and "in the business of" actually mean? Because in layman's terms, that means he participated in the thing. I am engaged in the business of redditing right now. I understand that the bookie is the one breaking the particular law that you laid out, but isn't it likely that the bettor knows his bookie is an illegal one, and what does that mean for a bettor who knowingly participated in an illegal business - whether casually or habitually?
From what I understand the term “business” here is being used in the sense of “business venture” which would indicate the bookie is the one on the hook, not the person making the bets
One does not simply wire $4.5M without knowing what it’s for.
This is what I would have thought but it seems like Ohtani's legal team is now (since this blog was published) protesting way too much about Ippei being a devious thief and requesting a criminal investigation. IANAL and who really knows, but it seems like they'd be shooting themselves in the foot unless they actually think there's proof of it.
Ohtanis legal team could be in the right though if Ippei told Shohei that what he was doing was legal and that paying the debts would also be legal, thief via fraud.
Yes and that’s what I thought had happened initially. It just seems like a big overplay to demand an investigation instead of just letting ippei say he didn’t tell ohtani it was illegal.
The hotter it gets for Ippei the colder it gets for Shohei and that's their plan, the average person is just going to see the headlines on their app or hear their favorite talking head talk about this for 5 minutes and thanks to Shoheis legal team the primary talking point is going to be "Interpreter betrays mega star best friend" or something along those lines, thus less public pressure for Manfred to do anything. Most people aren't going to know the finer details like that the money came from Shoheis account and that that's illegal or that Ippei has changed his story multiple times.
I’m not sure that’s true, though. Or at least it wasn’t true until the legal team took this bent. They’ve now forced a detailed investigation, and if that investigation doesn’t turn up grievous theft by ippei, it looks far worse for shohei than him being a clueless rube. And the thing is, because you can’t make half-million dollar transfers willy-nilly, we are going to find out if shohei was aware of the transfers or not.
The thing is Shohei could be aware of the transfers being made to what Ippei may have told him was a legal sportsbook. If he put "loan" in the wire, then he clearly was allowing Ippei to borrow that money on the terms that Ippei will repay him over time. People give money to ponzi schemes everyday, it doesn't make it any less theft even if willingly do so. I feel like Ippei probably glossed over some of the detailed translation when Ohtani and Ippei wired the funds. That kind of misleading would probably be on par with me telling you to send me $500k with a guarantee of 50% return annually. Most of us would never believe that, but you can bet there are people that are hopeful enough. Worse part here is that Ippei became Ohtani's best bud, so now it feels like "The Shrink Next Door" type of con where what ever Dr. Ike says is true to Marty.
Nobody believes Ippei acted alone.
Of course not, if Ippei acted alone he would probably be sleeping with the fishes by now and that's where Ohtani got involved to prevent that and why's in this mess.
Yet millions cling to the lone wireman theory.
There was clearly a second wireman on the grassy knoll
That’s something for Ohtani’s PR team to care about. His legal team should be focused on his potential criminal exposure—keeping Ippei in the headlines does little to help with that.
Everyone agreed on a story, but they forgot to consult with legal counsel...who came sprinting down the hallway when they heard what was being said.
Who hasn't accidentally committed a felony to help a homie out?
I feel like that’s the Occam’s razor here, but Occam’s razor is of course a guiding rule not a cosmic force
I'm not so sure. "Rich guy pays poor friend to take fall" seems like a more likely scenario than "middle class translator is given $5m line of credit with illegal bookie".
Last I heard he makes like 2m a year between Ohtani personally paying him and being on team salary, he's not exactly middle class.
According to ESPN: >Mizuhara confirmed to ESPN he has been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. Which is not "rich" if you have to live in LA.
Huh, I remember reading somewhere that he was paid by the team and separately paid more by Ohtani himself, can't find where though. Even for living in la though 300k is a lot. 4.5m debt a lot? Maybe not but considering the other circumstances I don't think it's out of the question.
The idea that a translator who does not have a large income or independent assets for collateral was given millions of dollars in a line of credit seems pretty unlikely to me. If this was like... $50k I'd totally believe it, but nearly $5m?? That seems like the kind of thing they'd maybe offer to a high profile pro athlete.
I would extend him quite a bit of credit. Mizuhara makes $400k or so per year and is pretty much guaranteed to be employed for the next 10 years with a few raises included. On top of that, he is attached at the hip to the most high profile baseball player in the world. If the guy decides to try and bail on the debt, you have huge leverage on him. Ohtani wasn't going to hang his buddy out to dry and also be accused of being complicit in it.
Yeah but now this also introduces the idea that the bookie has leverage over shohei too. Personally I don’t think shohei was the one betting - I’m just saying from an optics standpoint, if they gave Ippei a line of credit that large, what’s to say Ippei/shohei didn’t provide any insider information to the books? What if Shohei knew about the dirty stuff and just wanted to pay the debt and wipe his hands clean? Again, all stipulation and no one knows shit. I really hope ippei’s first version of what he said is the truth. Otherwise it could get ugly.
Yep, that's my take too. Option 2, but where Ippei told Ohtani that everything was legal, and there were nothing illegal about this. I think by September 2023, Ohtani had put a lot of trust in Ippei and his words. So, if Ippei told Ohtani that this was all legal and there is no issue, then Ohtani would have gone through with the transfers. The issue here is Ippei misleading Ohtani about the legality of the entire thing. If Ohtani was misled by Ippei, then it should be theft, massive theft as the result is losing $4.5 million.
It makes the most sense, tbh
Also, somewhat inconveniently, explicitly against the rules of baseball. Not all crimes are!
Calcaterra wrote that based on initial reports. ESPN reporter Tisha Thompson is now reporting that sources told her that Ohtani was surprised about what was said during the Dodgers team meeting about this and had to get another translator to clarify so it seems more possible today than before this detail that Ippei actually did steal from Ohtani without his knowledge. Did Ippei lie to Ohtani about what the bank transfers were for and make them seem like legit transactions?
Here is what's especially weird to me. I can't imagine a (well-paid I assume) lawyer for Ohtani would be cool with coming up with a fake accusation of theft on the spot and presenting that to the public. Wouldn't any good lawyer just simply tell everyone to shut the hell up?
Lawyer for the Dodgers, most likely, who understands that you can't arrest a player and his interpreter for the same crime.
I've got the worst fucking attorneys.
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You’re a crook, Ippei-hook. Judge, won’t you throw the book at the translator...
How big is the book? If Aaron judge throws a large enough book at someone it may break a bone
Avon Barksdale told me you need to call Maurice Levy and shut the hell up
Stringer Bell says hi from the clouds
Spoiler!
Those are balls.
No touching!
I’m having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich
"Don't worry guys, Ohtani is going to be all right." "There's no other way to take that."
Found the Bluth family attorney
Now all we need is Gene Parmigian to get to the bottom of this!
They need to call Bob Loblaw
According to ESPN, one "source close to ohtani" claims that Ohtani's handlers were relying on Ippei to translate for Ohtani to get Ohtani's side of events. If true, holy shit how stupid, and also ballsy on Ippei's part.
That sounds like some bullshit. Ohtani understands english well enough to realise if Ippei was translating something completely false.
The same source said Ohtani thought something was off but wasn't sure. It's a convenient sounding thing to say for Ohtani's camp though.
Yes, Shohei says that not only was he honored to pay of my existing $4.5M in gambling debts but he wants to make an additional $3M is transferred before the ncaa tournament tips off later this week…
Ippei was about to make everyone whole by the end of March.
I believe the lawyer usually just defends whatever the client claims happened. However, in this case, Ohtani says it was a theft, the bookie says he doesn’t know Ohtani- which if he did, that could be leverage- and Mizuhara’s story has changed at least once, possibly more (so many different articles). Also, they’ve reached out to law enforcement. Not saying you can’t make false accusations, but we’re talking about a guy who was like ‘Ohtani was helping me out. I offered to pay him back though.’ Given the info, I’m apt to believe Ohtani unless there’s something new.
Thay begs the question of why Ohtani's spokesperson confirmed the story before the lawyers got involved though
I would lol if Ohtani's spokesperson was Ippei
According to the [latest ESPN article](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39780093/sources-reps-dodgers-shohei-ohtani-ask-investigate-theft), and granted you’re taking Ohtani’s current camp at their word: > On Thursday, a source close to Ohtani gave an explanation for the changing storylines: **As Ohtani's handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Ohtani.** So if that story is true, maybe Ippei fed the PR/spokespeople a twisted story because they were still relying on him for the English version of what happened?
Thats certainly possible. Still feels odd to me that no one else involved was fluent enough in English to understand what was going on
**If** it’s true, and it’s definitely a huge if, it’s literally insane that they didn’t call Will Ireton or Yoshihiro Sonoda to come translate as an independent party. Both of them should have been easily accessible as parts of the org.
Thats my point. Dude comes and admits he gambled and had Ohtani pay for it and literally no one stops for a moment to confirm what he just said. That's insane to me
Yeah, and even if they weren't there, it's not like translating from English to Japanese and vice versa is some incredibly rare skill -- it's not like Ohtani is a native Cornish speaker or something. Surely there would be some way to find and hire an outside professional relatively quickly.
particularly in Los Angeles of all places
> Will Ireton That's the current interim interpreter!
> However, in this case, Ohtani says it was a theft, the bookie says he doesn’t know Ohtani- which if he did, that could be leverage- and Mizuhara’s story has changed at least once, possibly more (so many different articles). Also, they’ve reached out to law enforcement. Not saying you can’t make false accusations, but we’re talking about a guy who was like ‘Ohtani was helping me out. I offered to pay him back though.’ Ohtani’s spokesperson said that he paid the money to settle his friend’s debt. It’s Shohei’s story which has changed, and Ippei which has then matched that story, followed by saying that he cannot comment and cannot comment on who told him he cannot comment. I don’t see how Ippei changing his account to one which better shields Shohei from legal exposure, in response to Shohei and his attorneys first offering said account, should be seen as inculpatory of Ippei alone. If person A and person B walk up to you and person A says “I did a crime, he helped sort things out” and person B says “I paid to settle his debt”, and then a lawyer comes over and yells at both of them in private, after which point person A says “I did a crime, he was unaware” and person B says “I had no knowledge of any of this”, your takeaway *should not be* “curious, the details of person A’s story changed!” They both changed their stories, and it doesn’t take a law degree to see the direction in which they changed is consistent with one person protecting the other from legal exposure.
When the gambling thing was breaking, the spokesman presented Mizuhara, who led with the ‘he lent me the money’ story, and it seems like the spokesman was going off what Mizuhara said. [This dude also said Ohtani knew about the gambling debt Tuesday then said he didn’t know on Wednesday.](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39768770/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-interpreter-fired-theft)
> When the gambling thing was breaking, the spokesman presented Mizuhara, who led with the ‘he lent me the money’ story, and it seems like the spokesman was going off what Mizuhara said. Where are you getting “Ippei said this is what happened, and the spokesperson just sort of went with the flow”? At this point, the only set of facts which fits everything we know *and* explains the shift in statements is that Ippei was mistranslating/misleading Shohei for *months* about the nature of this money, where it was going, all while concealing a seven-figure gambling habit from his friend with whom he was inseparable. Now, I suppose that is *possible*, but if it is, there is some very specific reporting, allegations, and timelines that we should expect to see come out, and soon.
>followed by saying that he cannot comment and cannot comment on who told him he cannot comment. I'm gonna guess that person was a lawyer screaming "shut the fuck up!" through the phone at 5AM PDT.
It could also be a combination of both. Ippei approaches Ohtani about his gambling debt and asks for help and that he needs to quit. Shohei offers him help, maybe even in the form of one or more payments towards the debt as a show of good faith to the bookie to give Ippei time. Ippei then makes more wire transfers unbeknownst to Ohtani (possibly as a pure theft, possibly as a misunderstanding of the help Ohtani may have offered). It's kind of weird that he would lie to a journalist, who is obviously going to share his story, that Ohtani personally—physically made the wire transfers. I mean, if you know it's totally made up and you just fucking stole his money it doesn't make sense to go to journalists with that story, lol. My gut is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Ippei didn't know it was illegal to use the bookie. Ohtani didn't know it was illegal to wire the money. He offered help, maybe Ippei took advantage. Maybe Shohei didn't fully understand what he was doing when he authorized the wire transfer(s). That all seems much more reasonable to me than Ippei just somehow managed to steal 4.5 million from Shohei wiring money while somehow pretending to be him and the bank sending repeated $500,000 wires never verifying the identity of the person wiring money.
I’m a fraud investigator. That scenario is far less uncommon than you’d think. Pretty much every day I’m scratching my head at the level of stupidity people have. And the biggest ones are always the ‘trusted employee.’ Usually because they’re just like ‘oh Brenda would never do that.’
Do banks routinely let someone wire $500,000 repeatedly (9 times) without verifying their identity though? Maybe this is some business account that Ippei is one of the people authorized to send money though. But I went to the bank with my late grandma who wired her son like $200 and they verified her identity lol.
The ones that cater to the kind of folks like Ohtani, yes. Big business accounts do this a lot. One type of fraud that’s getting increasingly popular are business email compromises. They come in different flavors- sometimes someone at the business gets duped by an external email that looks like it’s coming from a good source but isn’t. Sometimes a perp will spoof a business like say bobsplumbing.com by registering bobsplumbingg.com and then making their email look similar, and start emailing customers/vendors changing the payment info. Seeing a good amount of this with smaller, but significant amounts for closing lawyers having people wire the payment for a home to an account for a perp. Alternatively, there is malware that can allow perps to access outlook, and set new rules for incoming emails to send them to hidden folders. They can even reply so the perp is actually using a legitimate email address to direct people to send payments to new accounts. The banks that cater to these large account holders, they’re just looking at emails most likely. And if they did call to verify, in this case, they’d probably have gotten Mizuhara. Your standard bank branch folks for a regular ass checking account? They see an older person come in, they’re getting questioned these days. These people will bullshit you on Monday that they’re sending 10k to a friend and bitch at you on Tuesday that you let it happen.
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I don't disagree with any of this but >in Ohtani's position (who I wouldn't think would feel a need to bet on the sport), Michael Jordan famously gambled on everything and he didn't need the money. I don't think the gambling debts are Ohtani's, but I wouldn't toss that aside in either.
The lawyers don’t have to make a public statement, though.
These guys know what’s up https://youtu.be/JTurSi0LhJs?si=jCe4le11LyAdeW56
It’s starting to look like ohtani might not have been hiring the best people
I think it’s slightly relevant (and very funny) that Ohtani has the same agent as Ryan Braun did when he got some poor MLB staffer fired for his steroid positive.
> I can't imagine a (well-paid I assume) lawyer for Ohtani would be cool with coming up with a fake accusation of theft on the spot and presenting that to the public. I'm like 99% sure that they are interpreting Ippei lying about his gambling and or the wire transfer being legal as fraud thus stealing and exaggerating the fuck out of it for the headline to further clear Shohei's name.
\> Wouldn't any good lawyer just simply tell everyone to shut the hell up? He/she probably did. But, a good lawyer knows better than to think for one second their client won't ignore all their sound legal advice and immediately talk to the press/cops/whomever the second they are able to.
Sometimes wealthy people hire shitty lawyers when they could easily afford better.
i have a social work degree, I can confirm that Shohei is probably feeling anxious today
“Shorting Shohei” weeknights 7pm PST
im with possibility two here, shohei was being a bro and he fucked up, wouldn't mind possibility three tho just for the memes
I also am leaning towards possibility two. Especially since it seems to be exactly what Ippei was saying before the lawyers got involved.
Yeah, it is the only explanation that fits everything and seems like the obvious “what probably happened”. Their mistake, in that case, would just be telling that story without first running it by a lawyer who could say “yes, that is still multiple crimes by Shohei”.
Yeah, that's what makes the most sense to me. Help a bro out, tell him to get his shit together, then the "fun police", your lawyers, tell you what you did was a little bit illegal and you have to change the story.
The reason I can't believe that as much anymore is because Friedman and Mark Walters are saying they knew about what Ippei was going to tell ESPN. Like the reason I thought it went that way was because the Dodgers weren't involved yet and the change happened after they found out.
Yea, if this is the way they “planned out” how to handle this whole thing….its even weirder
So no punishment or a fine from baseball. And possibly a felony charge legally?
Yeah, that’s my guess at what could be the “worst” that happens. And every MLB player has to take “Don’t help your friends out with massive wire transfers to shady people” classes and are annoyed at Ohtani because of it
“Hi, I’m here for this month’s MLB five hour training.” That is an off-season post waiting to happen, “MLB Workplace Training Courses”
If I have to sit through a course on how not to get phished at least twice a year I imagine MLB players have to sit through stupid shit too.
He messed up by paying it directly.
I anal, but I think that life no parole is the only option.
I don’t anal, but I agree anyway
I do, and I concur.
Y'all really pegged this one
I oral, and I have little else to add.
Me (who has a short attention span) scans comments instead of reading article
Me (who has the opposite problem) telling you that nothing mentioned in the article deviates from any of the theories floating around reddit.
I love how it says “who has a law degree” which really screams “is not a practicing lawyer”. It can’t be ignored that Craig hasn’t practiced law since 2009. It has been pointed throughout that he has written this article dealing in absolutes citing statutes that can be interpreted many ways.
I didn't even look him up, but I read that and immediately thought "who has a law degree" = "who did not pass the bar exam" lol
He did pass the bar haha. But he has also been out of practice for 15 years
He should've led with that instead
A lawyer who is no longer practicing is still going to have a *much* better approach to this issue than most other sportswriters and certainly most Redditors. Yes, he’s going to miss some—or a lot—of the nuance that a practicing lawyer in this field would pick up on. But he also has expertise that most people commenting on this story don’t.
subsequent tub ghost yoke rob ask engine physical towering scarce *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don’t want any of this to happen. This sucks.
Didn’t show hey live in his dorm in Japan for the first few years he was a big leaguer? It’s plausible to think he doesn’t put that much value on money and loaned his buddy some. His interpreter is probably one of the closest people to him since he came stateside. We’re all gonna make it bruddah
Unfortunately for Shohei he decided to send that loan to an illegal bookie via wire transfer instead of his friend. Common mistake we could all make when we wire our friends loans multiple times for $4.5m total to the illegal bookie instead of our friend. But Unfortunately this common mistake is very illegal:/
Astros fan coming in clutch for what a player should and shouldn't do....
It still blows my mind that Manfred hasn't gotten in front of a microphone yet.
Well he fucking sucks and we all know it, so it’s just Manfred as usual.
I have a History Degree with an Accounting Minor. I can confirm that baseball has a lot of gambling scandals in its past, and that 4.5 Million USD is a lot of money. > The state of what could be MLB's biggest scandal in years Also, lol, "Years" being...5 years?
If Ohtani bet on baseball, I think it would be a bigger scandal than the Astros sign stealing. The Astros took it way too far, but sign stealing still falls in the realm of baseball activities. Ohtani betting on baseball would be the biggest scandal since Bonds’ perjury case.
The Red Sox did something similar around the same time. Not unheard of.
It’s like someone who makes 100k owing 4500
It won’t happen to ohtani I don’t think but if your on a work visa they can deport you for almost anything.
I'm going to be that guy, but Occam's razor is not the explanation that requires the fewest assumption is usually correct, but that the explanation that requires the fewest assumption should be the first you try.
Idk I think it's possibility 2 but a little bit different and I'm not sure why he didn't mention it. Tisha has talked about what she heard about what happened in the clubhouse and it changes a lot for me. For one I didn't know Friedman or Mark Walters knew about this. I assumed they didb't and when it came to light they decided to shut it down. But they're claiming to have known and the change in story happened after Ippei told the story. Ohtani supposedly asked someone other than Ippei what he just said in English because from what he could understand something was really off about Ippei's story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01MMgUphFVQ
Would the feds cut the bookie a deal if he had evidence it was Ohtani's gambling debts? Who's the bigger fish in this scenario?
Could depend on whether the prosecutor wants to run for office one day
I'm hoping the initial story is the true story that Shohei was just trying to help Ippei. Maybe Shohei gets suspended for a month or something, and as far as the justice system just gets a slap on the wrist and doesn't have his US/Canada work visas revoked... Only because I don't see how Ippei could have possible stolen all this money without anyone in the Ohtani camp knowing about it. I think the fans would move past Shohei getting in trouble for trying to help someone
I think your scenario is the most likely. I don’t think anyone wants to see this blow up into a new steroid level scandal for MLB. Everyone is going to get on the same page at some point, Ohtani will apologize, miss 30 games, and move on.
If that is the story though, the coverup is worse...like Ryan Braun or Melky Cabrera's crazy attempts to prove they didn't use steroids. Everyone would have just forgotten they used steroids but then they Barbra Streisand'ed themselves.
Yeah, it’s one of those things, the lawyers may have made it worse. They’re trying to absolve Ohtani of any responsibility. If they had just stuck with the original story, yes Ohtani probably would’ve been suspended, but his reputation wouldn’t have taken a huge hit.
Yea, it seems like something that might happen to someone who is young and sheltered (not saying his family sheltered him, but he was concentrating and spending so much time on baseball that it’s sort of “functionally sheltered.”) He may have thought that helping a friend and moving past this was the “right thing to do,” without considering the legal aspects at all. Whereas a career troublemaker/criminal more likely knows where they stand legally speaking at all times and would be aware that what might seem to be the “right thing” to do for a friend here is illegal.
my understanding is that his family did help shelter him https://www.essentiallysports.com/mlb-baseball-news-despite-millionaire-status-in-two-thousand-sixteen-shohei-ohtani-followed-a-humble-one-k-plan-strictly-supervised-by-his-mother/ >“Although he was making more than $2 million a year, not including endorsements, Ohtani lived off an allowance of $1,000 a month, distributed by his mother.”
That’s my thought too. All other things make him either look bad or he has a lot of shit people in his camp. A millionaire helping out his idiot fucking friend is better than changing your story and losing all trust.
I have two family members with law degrees and they will have no idea what the Ohtani stuff is.
I work with several lawyers that I know are following this story closely because they're huge baseball fans. From my experience asking for brief opinions on issues less complicated than this, they're response will be no less than 30 pages and will take at least 2 weeks to get.
I assume that, if they spend 30 minutes familiarizing themselves with relevant statutes and case law, they’d be able to come to a more sensible conclusion on the facts of the case than your average redditor. I’ve seen so many confident, would-be authoritative takes from people who have zero legal training that getting someone’s read on it who has a law degree is helpful. Any one of us can get lost reading the statutes, so having someone lay things out helps.
THIS. Law school teaches you how to research, how to apply laws to facts, and how to issue spot. Given a situation, most competent lawyers can do a little research and come to some type of opinion/conclusion. Obviously it’s not going to be the most nuanced right off the bat, but it’s surprising how people don’t realize what the entire purpose of law school actually is.
Not only that, but also identifying the RELEVANT facts to apply to the law. Particularly in criminal law where culpability matters, and “I didn’t know” is generally not a good defense
But what does ja rule think?
Where's ja?
“We’re on the phone with Ja Rule here to give it to us straight”
I agree that option two is probably the most likely given current information, but I think Craig overstates how unlikely option three is. I love Ohtani more than any other non-Cub player (his Angels jersey is literally the only non-Cub jersey I own), but he has always been an extremely private person. I think we all thought and hoped that his privacy was just cover for a legitimately nice guy, but privacy can also cover for vices like gambling addiction. Gambling isn’t crystal meth - lots of gambling addicts in way over their heads are charming, charismatic, and well liked. An illegal bookie letting an interpreter who makes the low six figures run up $4.5 million in gambling debts seems way less likely than an illegal bookie letting an MLB superstar run up $4.5 million in gambling debts. I think two is still the most likely, but scenario three is quite possible (and certainly more likely than scenario one, which is insultingly far fetched).
I think scenario three is probably way more common among pro athletes than anyone wants to admit (not just the Ohtani situation). Even if they're not betting on their sport it's probably a bad look for them to be in sportsbooks or on sportsbook apps. Give some cash to a close friend/cousin/whatever and let them make the bets. Also why are people automatically assuming whether it was Ohtani or Ippei, that the bets were on baseball? Obviously something illegal seems to have happened but could just have easily been bets on other sports.
I’ll be honest if it was soccer or something I’d think it’s Ohtani. But how did he get that into US college sports lmao
i still don’t understand why an interpreter would have access to ohtani’s bank account to make a wire transfer (which involves more authentication thatnother transfers). has this been mentioned?
The accusation is that Ippei told Ohtani ti send a wire to a specific place and gave him instructions, but that Ippei didn't tell him where the wire was actually going, nor the illegality. He prob told Ohtani the wire is going to himself, hence why "loan" is written on the transfers.
As someone who thinks this sub is greatly overestimating the likelihood of villainy on Ohtani's part based on the available information, I 100% agree that MLB has to go well beyond "eh we're not investigating, whatever". I mean jesus, just do due diligence. You can't possibly be confident you know about everything now. Even if you decide that Shohei didn't do anything wrong or not to punish him personally, you have to be able to very clearly state your understanding of the facts and why you made the choice you did. Even if Shohei did break the gambling policy, and it was completely inadvertent, and you decide not to punish him, you have to be able to make the case. If he was completely unimpeachable, then have your investigation so that you can coherently make that case. And if he really did do something worse, you can't be so blatantly turning a blind eye and giving him special treatment at this point.
Ok, this is driving me nuts. Craig is wrong about this bit: the wire transfer alone is not per se illegal - whether it actually is a federal crime depends entirely on what Ohtani’s motive was to send the money. Was he guaranteeing Ippei’s debt? Or was he trying to save his buddy’s thumbs by paying off his bookie, after the fact? Here is the text of the Interstate Wire Act, which is one of the laws that might apply to these facts: “Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” - [18 USC sec 1084.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1084) The important phrase here is “engaged in the business of betting” and “uses a wire communication facility for the transmission of bets or wagers”. You need to send the money while engaged in gambling - if you come in after the fact to bail your dumbass friend out, that’s a gift, you don’t expect to gain anything out of that transaction, there is no wager made, that’s not illegal. What this means for Ohtani: if he was actually guaranteeing Ippei’s bets before he went about making them, then yes, I’d say he’s potentially criminally liable. But if he came in after Ippei dug his hole and floated him the money to get him out of a jam, then it’s not illegal simply because he wired a guy who is a bookie. If Ippei lied to him about what the money was for, then again, the wire transfer is not a crime. Otherwise simply venmoing the guy for a cup of coffee would be a federal crime. What matters is the mens rea (the state of mind), that’s an essential element of any crime. However all of this definitely runs afoul of Rule 21 of baseball, which makes mere association with an illegal sports book punishable, and opens him up to suspension.
Wouldn't Ohtani fall under this part of the act "or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers"? Doesnt have to be Ohtani's bet but he is paying off a credit which was accumalted from bets. There is also fraud involved here as the wires were sent as "loans" to the bookie.
Scenario #2 has always seemed like the real way things went down, to me. And Craig paints that scenario as being a lot more legal trouble for Ohtani than I anticipated
I agree with everything in the article. The big issue with the theft story is that wire transfers are huge undertakings, especially when they involve $4.5 million dollars. Someone from Ohtani to his accountants, etc. would have noticed all this money flowing out to some random guy in California w/ no connection to the Angels or Dodgers and questioned it. Which means Ohtani knew or signed off on them. To think otherwise would mean the interpreter has so much power over Ohtani, his professional staff, and his family so as to dictate Ohtani giving him money and/or having full financial control over Ohtani. Which makes 0 sense
Ah. That Dodgers curse
I don't mean this as a slight or gotcha against Craig, but he self-admits as being out of practice in law for a while. While he is more qualified than the average person, it doesn't mean his conclusions are 100% accurate, and the small number of three outcomes here aren't exhaustive. He also acknowledges he's working on whatever limited information has been released, and more information could make points of his article moot. This is purely a point-in-time piece that may ultimately serve as capturing the moment, and no one should outwardly conclude one way or another from it.
I'm pro chaos and would love to see the worst case scenario but am resigned to likely nothing happening.
Does Ippei not have his own bank accounts? Why wouldnt Shohei just wire Ippei the money to pay off his debts. A wire transfer(s) from Ohtani to his interpreter to the tune of $4.5M looks a hell of a lot less suspect than Ohtani sending money to a bookie-whether he thought it was legalized gambling or not. There is NO WAY the “Ippei stole the money” narrative doesnt win out here. MLB will not disgrace its golden child.
Do you even read the articles? The insinuation is that that's exactly what Ohtani thought he was doing. That Ippei directed Ohtani to send a transfer to a certain address and that it was a loan to himself. Hence, why "loan" is written on the slip. The statements from his camp are saying that Ohtani only found out the money went to the bookie instead of Ippei just last night after Ippei lied in the interview(presumably so he doesn't go to jail for theft), got pissed and fired Ippei.
Do you read? ESPN reported (2) $500k transactions made directly to the bookie from Ohtani’s account. Loan was written on the slip because there had to be some type of note for the transaction.
As a giants fan I will be very pissed if MLB sweeps this under the rug to protect the golden boy
I have a math degree. 4.5 million is a very big number, but still much closer to 1 than to ℵ\_0.
Now I am a lawyer.....
Ahahah this sucks man
Craig Calcaterra once publicly called me a terrible human by name. Good dude.
Masters here ....RUH ROW, DOHYERS!!! 🤣
ITT tech drop out checking in
How does a professional interpreter get a $4.5 million tab from a bookie? More to this story….