MLB Opens Investigation Into Allegations Involving Shohei Ohtani, Ippei Mizuhara

Two different issues, so I will address both.

1st Bauer

Bauer and his lawyer both admitted he beat and choked Hill. Whether it was consensual or not, he admitted committing the act. There were 2 other women that got restraining orders against him for the same thing.

The DA declined to press criminal charges because it was a he said, she said type of case and very, very few of those go to court. I remember reading in the LA times at the time that less than 10% are ever criminally charged. That sounds high to me. In San Diego county about 5% of reported sexual assault cases go to court.

That does NOT mean he was found innocent of sexual assault by a judge or jury in a court of law.

Bauer was found guilty on 3 counts, each with a different woman, of violating the MLB Domestic Violence Policy by MLB and by an independent arbitrator.

The only time he did go to court, Bauer lost the defamation case he filed against Deadspin. They found that Deadspin was in the right to say in their article that the doctors said she had been beaten to the point she had basilar facial fractures. Remember, Bauer had already admitted HE was the one that beat her.

Bauer had 3 women file for a restraining order and 2 won that order. Not sure what your definition of predator is, but if multiple women file for a restraining order against you, that is a predator to me.

Now about Ohtani.

Regardless of whether he was doing it to cover his own gambling debts or to pay off his interpreter’s gambling debts, Ohtani likely committed wire fraud, a federal offense punishable by up to a 20 year jail sentence per charge.

For transfers from a personal bank account, Its practically impossible for anyone to make a wire transfer of over $10,000 without the account holders knowledge and active participation in the transfer. That means that at the very least, Ohtani knew about and helped Mizuhara(sp?) make the transfers and that is a crime.

One of the things that has to be done is make a detailed report about the reason for the wire transfer. The claim by Ohtani’s camp originally that it was for a “loan” is not enough. What was the loan to purchase? Who is the lender? What is their CA license? The bank will require all that information and more. https://www.fincen.gov has information on exactly what is required in that disclosure.

Banks also have the information available in Japanese so Ohtani could read exactly what he was filling out and attesting to. Remember, the bank is liable for illegal activities that are facilitated by wire transfers. They can get extremely large fines for each transfer if its found out to be for illegal activities, so you have to tell them exactly what the transfer is for and they are diligent in acquiring that information. That means that Ohtani or Mizuhara or both lied in filling out that form. That constitutes wire fraud.

As I noted above, wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years per count and as others have noted, the federal sentencing guidelines call for 66 months per count the defendant is convicted on. Often the sentences are served concurrently, so even if its 9-10 or even 15 counts, it could all be served at the same time. The minimum is 5.5 years in jail.

The total dollar amount of wire transfers was “over $4.5 million with the largest transfers being $500k. That means a minimum of 9 wire transfers over a 3 year period. That constitutes a pattern of fraud and a court is not going to go easy on the perpetrator of repeated crimes.

All of this is to say that its not something that MLB can minimize and Ohtani is in deep trouble if its found he is in any way part of making the wire transfers. It will be extremely hard to prove that his interpreter had the kind of access to make those transfers without Ohtani’s participation.

Personally, I don’t believe any bookie that is taking high enough dollar bets for a gambler to run up $500k+ debts at a time and over $.5 million in total would do so without knowing exactly what the income level is of the person making the bets. They would want to know you have the means to cover your bets since they are basically extending a loan to you.

Mizuhara was making a reported $80k from the Angels during the time the gambling was going on. He was hired at $300k by the Dodgers when Ohtani was signed by them. Maybe he was being paid separately by Ohtani in addition to what the Angels were paying him, I don’t have any indication of that or information to say he wasn’t. Maybe he was making $300k total during that 2021-2023 time frame.

I believe that Ohtani was the one making the bets and Mizuhara was just the bet runner, just like Rose had multiple bet runners including Tommy Gioiosa and Michael Bertolini. That is just my opinion and because of the federal investigation of the matter, the truth will come out.