shohei ohtani alert

(I could probably write more about the allure of gambling/pseudo-gambling in Japan, seemingly every family having a weird uncle who got caught up owing too much money to the wrong people, why there are so many Japanese-friendly hotels/restaurants in Las Vegas, but that can wait for another thread...)

Sending large amounts of money to an illegal bookmaker under false pretense (loan), I can imagine in the eyes of the law is much more severe than smoking pot (or even possessing/trafficking a material amount of). This is a federal felony territory, with potential wire fraud/laundering implications.

my point comparing sports gambling to pot is that i think both are examples of activities that the majority of american society simply doesn't think are crimes any more.

framing ohtani degen gambling as wire fraud/money laundering - who is the victim here? what is the harm to society? sports betting as wire fraud - who is being defrauded here? sports betting as money laundering - who is shohei laundering money on behalf of? is shohei washing money for putin?

if we're talking about ippei stealing money from shohei - that's more straightforward, but again ohtani comes out favorably - he was the victim! which is probably why his lawyers are framing it this way.

i mean yeah, the feds could try to stick ohtani with wire fraud. i think that's a hard sell to the public. there exists such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. wire fraud is what you charge cryptofrauds with because we don't have adequate laws on the books to deal with cryptoscams. it's what you use to get capone with, where everybody knows a crime has been committed but it's too hard to pin.

just don't see what crime ohtani's supposed to have committed here.

dayotm

(and yeah yeah i know they got capone on tax evasion, not wire fraud. which brings me back to another point - yes this came out of a federal investigation, but one by the IRS, not by the DOJ or OFAC which is what you'd expect if wire fraud or AML were involved here. maybe the IRS is mad that shohei is tax-maxxing via his contract deferral, but afaict the contract reduced his state tax burden - didn't see any articles talking about federal.)

My biggest takeaway is I'm seriously thinking about going to Ippei's dad Hokkaido-style Izakaya in OC. Will report back.

My biggest takeaway is I'm seriously thinking about going to Ippei's dad Hokkaido-style Izakaya in OC. Will report back.

imagine how good you have to be to win multiple mvp awards, earn a $700m contract, etc. while throwing games

that's just showing people up

I’ve seen this kind of face at a basketball game before. He needs the PG on the bench with 16 points to score four more with six minutes left https://t.co/SbuhU45o3d

— spencer🦕 (@spen______) March 23, 2024

imagine how good you have to be to win multiple mvp awards, earn a $700m contract, etc. while throwing games

that's just showing people up

― mookieproof, Saturday, March 23, 2024 1:12 PM (fifty-seven minutes ago)

https://i.imgur.com/bVeXeGR.jpeg

honestly i'd be pretty impressed if he were betting on oakland-kentucky

― mookieproof, Thursday, March 21, 2024 2:06 PM (two days ago)

https://i.imgur.com/BH8qp4z.png

https://i.imgur.com/ApSaZPt.png

Timmy never threw games but he definitely threw while high according to walking hernia Aubrey Huff

framing ohtani degen gambling as wire fraud/money laundering - who is the victim here? what is the harm to society? sports betting as wire fraud - who is being defrauded here? sports betting as money laundering - who is shohei laundering money on behalf of? is shohei washing money for putin?

if we're talking about ippei stealing money from shohei - that's more straightforward, but again ohtani comes out favorably - he was the victim! which is probably why his lawyers are framing it this way.

― 龜, Saturday, March 23, 2024 10:45 AM bookmarkflaglink

i mean yeah, the feds could try to stick ohtani with wire fraud. i think that's a hard sell to the public. there exists such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. wire fraud is what you charge cryptofrauds with because we don't have adequate laws on the books to deal with cryptoscams. it's what you use to get capone with, where everybody knows a crime has been committed but it's too hard to pin.

just don't see what crime ohtani's supposed to have committed here.

― 龜, Saturday, March 23, 2024 10:50 AM bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. Felony requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and this is nowhere near there yet. The sine qua non of wire fraud, either on its own or as a predicate act to a conspiracy to commit wire fraud (or RICO aka Racketeering) felony charge, is specific intent "with intent to defraud" and, if part of a conspiracy, knowledge of the conspiracy.

Putting a memo on a wire transfer as "loan" is not slam-dunk circumstantial evidence of an intent to defraud in itself but it certainly might bear some explaining if it lands a person in the middle of an investigation. There could be all kinds of elaborate mechanisms to defraud someone or launder ill gotten proceeds but without specific intent there is no crime. Sho could be a victim here, so could the translator. It all depends what the evidence shows. Prosecutors tend to go for slam dunk cases but otoh they do like to make examples out of celebrities :( Out come could be anythign from immunity to witness to a plea to total exoneration. It's a shame and I hope he has a good criminal lawyer.

This seems like a less than great thing to only find out now

https://theathletic.com/5364216/2024/03/23/shohei-ohtani-ippei-mizuhara-biography-inaccuracies/?source=user_shared_article

This is too weird

Mizhuara’s connection to Okajima seems to have been exaggerated over time. Multiple news reports have linked Mizuhara to Okajima over different periods. That includes a Nippon.com story from 2021 that said Mizuhara was Okajima’s interpreter during the 2010 season with the Red Sox. But in addition to the Red Sox’s denial, archives from the Boston Globe in April and May 2010 name Ryo Shinkawa as Okajima’s interpreter. The team’s media guide from 2010 lists two people as team interpreters that season, but not Mizuhara.

In devising a media guide, the standard protocol requires trust between the media relations department and the rest of the employees, according to interviews with media relations staffers from other clubs, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The media relations department does not have the time to vet the resume claims of each employee, the staffers said. A media relations staffer will often send a proposed biographic thumbnail for pre-approval to the employee, or ask the employee for biographical information in publishing the guide.

Anyone else watch the presser?

I'll say this much: for all of the mists of uncertainty we had in the past week, Ohtani going full-on "he stole from me" would be a totally crazy position to take if it was not true. It would open him up to all kinds of jeopardy, both civil and criminal.

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) March 25, 2024

I think it's clear by this point that Ippei controlled all of Shohei's finances, investments, accounting, PR, sponsorships, sports agent decisions, charity, romantic match-making and FTX endorsements:

https://i.imgur.com/EuvqF6c.jpeg

“He’s obviously one of the most electric players in all of sports right now,” Sam Bankman-Fried, whose net worth Forbes pegs at $26.5 billion, told CNN in a phone interview.

Last season Ohtani — whose compensation for the sponsorship will be paid entirely in cryptocurrency and FTX equity — became the first player in MLB history to be selected as an All-Star as both a pitcher and a batter.

“We are hoping to have a similarly revolutionary impact on what fintech means and what personal finance apps look like,” Bankman-Fried said.

Ok back to Ippei this is such a weird and awkward story and obviously someone/everyone is still lying and there are sooooo many incredible leaps of faith, I really want a detailed timeline of what happened in Korea from the day of game 1 to right before game 2. There's an amazing oral history in there I bet... particularly the ESPN report that Rob Manfred was made aware of the scandal 15+ hours before Ohtani claims he first learned that there was money missing from his account and that something was amiss.

I'll admit to being 100% blinded by love, but I believe Ohtani after watching the presser

I forgot about the whole FTX endorsement, terrible

Question for a rich person: if $500,000 is transferred from your account once (let alone 9x), wouldn't the bank/financial institution give you a call? I'd certainly at least want an alert sent to my phone.

— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) March 26, 2024

why do people think that celebrities or athletes are more careful about their money than the average person?

Let's play a game! In which order do you think the following people learned of the $4.5M wired from Shohei to Mathew Bowyer:

A) Ippei Mizuhara
B) Mathew Bowyer
C) IRS investigators
D) Federal Investigators
E) Tisha Thompson
F) Jeff Passan
G) Rob Manfred
H) Andrew Friedman & LAD executives
I) Jon Weisman LAD VP of comms/PR Crisis Mgmt
J) Readers of the LA Times & ESPN.com
K) Creative Arts Agency & Nez Balelo
L) The Los Angeles Dodgers per their all-hands Team Meeting following Game 1
M) Sam Fernandez, LAD General Counsel
N) Berk Brettler LLP (representing Ohtani)
O) Will Ireton (LAD Mgr of Player Ops, also Shohei Ohtani's current translator)
P) Shohei Ohtani (aka Shohei Otani)

The presser suggests it's A -> P but I'm "all-in" on P+A -> O (poor Will, always the last to know)

Godless Danes Elope Matting Gull Harem Innerfeed (L)

Investigators Sir (C)

Acetylene Agrees Lava Briton Zilch (K)

Redraw Executed Friends Aid Valiant (H)

By Thee Warmbow (B)

Neural Enigma, Damns Full-Cancer Gee (M)

Hazier Impiapu (A)

Calm Mist Presented Online For Jazzers (J)

Pretense Brethren, Rank Brightell Pop (N)

Venerated Fiscal Trove (D)

Heistian Hoot, Shh Akin Aio (P)

Phoniest Paths (E)

Majestic Windstorming Vital Pro EMS LAD (I)

Japes Fanfess (F)

Lonelier Wasp Hello, A Slick, Troll Shantytown (O)

Red Bar Inform (G)

gyac pointed out that although Kenley Jensen claimed that Ohtani speaks perfect English, the Dodgers had at least 2 other translators and at least one other bilingual employee at their disposal in Seoul, why wouldn't they have been looped in to the PR crisis?

why do people think that celebrities or athletes are more careful about their money than the average person?

The Angels took direction from Balelo on Ohtani’s media preferences. While much of his public persona is curated and shaped by his representation, his time with reporters was one of the few areas Balelo didn’t fully control. As a result, the Ohtani camp tried to limit it as much as possible.

Ohtani’s list of one-on-one interviews over the years is sparse. He conducted a photoshoot with GQ Magazine in 2022. He did a special with FOX’s Ben Verlander — who is also represented by CAA — last year. And, this year, Ohtani participated in a documentary aired on ESPN.

There are several instances throughout the film where rival agent Scott Boras is blurred out of the video. Boras, like CAA, has a suite adjacent to home plate at Angel Stadium. As a result, he is visible in many highlight shots throughout the documentary. However, unlike people similarly situated, Boras’ face can’t be seen.

Balelo is featured prominently in the documentary. It is unclear if he or CAA had any hand in the film’s creation or production. The film’s director, Toru Tokikawa, said Balelo and CAA did not provide editorial direction and were not given advanced screening. However, he did not respond to follow-up questions. ESPN declined to comment.

gyac pointed out that although Kenley Jensen claimed that Ohtani speaks perfect English🕸, the Dodgers had at least 2 other translators and at least one other bilingual employee at their disposal in Seoul, why wouldn't they have been looped in to the PR crisis?

And btw Ohtani can speak perfect conversational English and still prefer to use an interpreter for navigating technical or professional conversations or jargon. The only thing that puzzles me with Ohtani’s claim that he didn’t understand what Ippei was saying when he addressed the clubhouse, was the audience. It was going to be an audience of mainly baseball players. You cannot tell me he used big or confusing words in English, cos half the guys aren’t going to understand you anyway regardless of what their native language is.

Giving Rendon vibes there...

...also David Ortiz "milkshake" defense (that's a deep cut for y'all lol)

Is it hard to believe that Ippei Mizuhara had access to Shohei Ohtani's bank account?
No. It's quite plausible, says Katsunori Kojima, a former interpreter for the Mets/Giants. He handled lots of financial transactions for players.pic.twitter.com/OOakRYFtdl https://t.co/bhRQCVKh3a

— Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) March 26, 2024

fwiw i don’t find it implausible at all, the wire transfers. also when you find out even tim fucking duncan has gotten scammed. it’s just a thing that happens to people who have extreme wealth thrust upon them when they didn’t grow up with it.

In 2015, Duncan sued his former investment adviser, claiming over $20 million in losses.[163] In September 2016, a federal grand jury indicted the adviser on two counts of wire fraud related to the case.[163] In April 2017, the adviser pled guilty to wire fraud in the case;[164] in June 2018, he reached a settlement and received $7.5 million.[165]

do we know that this is his personal account, or just an account he owns? I have a biz account through which my people & me get paid. I don't monitor it at all, I would go insane. my personal account, I'd know in a minute if anything was amiss, but the biz account is entirely overseen by people who I trust to do right with it. there are many cases, in entertainment, of such trust having been misplaced, but there's nothing unusual about a business account administered by a manager. you, the player/entertainer, get paid to your personal from that account on an agreed-upon schedule. at money levels like Ohtani's making, choosing to just admin your own accounts would be considered foolish by most -- you're not a money guy, you will fuck up.

Giving Rendon vibes there...

gyac my comment wasn't about ohtani specifically or strictly. i'm speaking more generally about a widespread projection that is happening where people think "well if *i* had all that money i'd be responsible with it!" and then take on this incredulous tone about how someone wasn't able to keep track of all their money when there is mountains of evidence that tells us that becoming a celebrity or pro athlete does not convey to you a new preternatural sense for how to manage money

The question is not, did Ippei have access to this account. The question is, why didn’t transfers of this size require some kind of authorisation from the account holder? I mean I have a pretty normal current account that is decidedly free of millions of dollars and my bank still makes me go through an authorisation process every time I’m paying someone new for the first time. I don’t see how someone could move half a million dollars to a new account without some kind of account safeguard kicking in.

gyac my comment wasn't about ohtani specifically or strictly. i'm speaking more generally about a widespread projection that is happening where people think "well if *i* had all that money i'd be responsible with it!" and then take on this incredulous tone about how someone wasn't able to keep track of all their money when there is mountains of evidence that tells us that becoming a celebrity or pro athlete does not convey to you a new preternatural sense for how to manage money

do we know that this is his personal account, or just an account he owns? I have a biz account through which my people & me get paid. I don't monitor it at all, I would go insane. my personal account, I'd know in a minute if anything was amiss, but the biz account is entirely overseen by people who I trust to do right with it. there are many cases, in entertainment, of such trust having been misplaced, but there's nothing unusual about a business account administered by a manager. you, the player/entertainer, get paid to your personal from that account on an agreed-upon schedule. at money levels like Ohtani's making, choosing to just admin your own accounts would be considered foolish by most -- you're not a money guy, you will fuck up.

you guys should read this new yorker story about an inmate in a high security prison in georgia who stole $11 million from elderly billionaires by calling up charles schwab and impersonating his victims, it might disabuse you from the notion that there are super high level security systems in place to prevent millions of dollars from being transferred from one bank account to another illicitly

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-south/how-a-man-in-prison-stole-millions-from-billionaires

private wealth banking is a different world than the kind of retail banking available to you and me

even on reddit you can find people who are moving 7 figures around with no problem (see comments): https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/vjz0w1/large_funds_transfers/

i’m still stuck on travis sawchik apparently legitimately implying that all of this could have been prevented if only ohtani had bank alerts sent to his phone if $500,000 got moved from one of his accounts

Oh yeah sorry I forgot this happened in America

ok yes I know Ohtani neither likes/wants to pay taxes and would never ever gamble esp by being paid in FTX equity/crypto for certain endorsements, but goddamn my accountants & loan officers have a lot of questions for any movement of funds in a ballpark percentage to what was happening with these wire transfers... Was Ippei overriding any account flags by accountants or wealth management advisers in his translator role?

(class-based question, please only answer if you have read Das Kapital):
did Ippei deserve to go to "arbitration" because LAA was only paying him $85k/year and he felt he was worth $4.5M...? LAA was paying Ippei 2.5x minimum wage for being the gopher/best friend/personal assistant/low-key financial manager (TIL this is what translators do!) of one of their best players. That's the real story there, my man was underpaid despite being the puppetmaster behind Ohtani's success so he was just skimming his well-earned rake. You gotta take care of your folks before they Parasite you.

The lawyer, business manager, agent, bank are the safeguards. If the account holder instructs a bank that a fiduciary can handle their money then the bank relies on that instruction.

Mechanics of wiring money can be as simple as the bank follows up on an online request to move money by calling the number associated with the account and speaking with the person who answers in a recorded call. They call the number associated with the account.

These are big sums of money in one sense but not compared to, say, an escrow agent who closes housing sales in Orange County all day. I am not up to speed and have no opinion on this case but in general it's not beyond the realm of belief.

z_tbd: Can you organize all the players in this story into an Immaculate Grid? That'll help me understand.

even on reddit you can find people who are moving 7 figures around with no problem (see comments): https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/vjz0w1/large_funds_transfers/

― 龜, Tuesday, March 26, 2024 2:56 PM (five minutes ago)

most of the comments are referring to auto-clearing house limits and NOT wire transfers.

the comments say that ACH transfers typically have limits but that wires often don’t, depends on the bank

xps to Shasta his role was more of a personal assistant than an interpreter. There was an article about interpreters last year and I remembered this because the article commented on how unusual his role was:

https://theathletic.com/4581805/2023/06/06/mlb-interpreters-shohei-ohtani/?source=user_shared_article

Mizuhara also trains with Ohtani. He’s caught his bullpens at times, and served as Ohtani’s catcher in the Home Run Derby. He said part of his job is helping Ohtani minimize distractions and balance his offseason schedule of marketing and endorsements.

“I’m with him all offseason too,” Mizuhara said. “I’m with him 365 days of the year, which I think is different than the other interpreters.” Mizuhara and Ohtani even worked out together on Christmas.

While the work schedule isn’t that demanding for other interpreters, it is still a significant enough commitment that lack of personal time is the clear number-one drawback.

did Ippei deserve to go to "arbitration" because LAA was only paying him $85k/year and he felt he was worth $4.5M...? LAA was paying Ippei 2.5x minimum wage for being the gopher/best friend/personal assistant/low-key financial manager (TIL this is what translators do!)

It's funny you mention that. People forget that minimum hourly wage in California is $16-$19+ depending on the locality (and going up to $20 for fast food workers in SF).

The minimum legal salary for an exempt full-time worker in California is generally double the state minimum wage for a forty-hour week with no vacation. If a person is truly never off the clock and has their work tightly controlled, then conceivably they are not even an exempt employee and entitled to overtime and doubletime.

The salary is pretty low. Don't know if translators are in a union but would be interesting to consider the potential wage claim, class action claims, etc.

fwiw the first time I did a wire transfer at Schwab (a small amount, a few hundred iirc) I got a phone call from a human after I hit submit on the website and they asked me a bunch of security questions.

the second time I did a wire transfer at Schwab it was the down payment for my house, which was low six figures, so not millions but not nothing, and 99% of the balance of the account, and I did not get a phone call.

The lawyer, business manager, agent, bank are the safeguards. If the account holder instructs a bank that a fiduciary can handle their money then the bank relies on that instruction.

Mechanics of wiring money can be as simple as the bank follows up on an online request to move money by calling the number associated with the account and speaking with the person who answers in a recorded call. They call the number associated with the account.

These are big sums of money in one sense but not compared to, say, an escrow agent who closes housing sales in Orange County all day. I am not up to speed and have no opinion on this case but in general it's not beyond the realm of belief.

― felicity, Tuesday, March 26, 2024 6:03 PM (yesterday)

this is a great point. there is a 300% chance that shohei has a special private banker assigned at all of his banks and a 500% chance that he is not the only one holding the keys.

i am also serious when i saw that private banking (available to HNW and UHNW individuals - a term of art) is not the same banking available to you and me:

https://www.jpmorgan.com/wealth-management/wealth-partners/family-wealth
https://www.privatebank.citibank.com/we-serve/worldly-wealthy-individuals
https://www.morganstanley.com/what-we-do/wealth-management/private-wealth-management

these bankers specialize in being obsequious, high-touch, fawning, acrobatic in their contortions to be of service - it's quite disgusting to see. quite easy for me to believe that they'd wave through a couple of $500k wires for somebody like ohtani, who most certainly isn't even on their top-tier list of clients. $500k is on the low end of the kinds of wires they clear in a day: https://archive.ph/FU6ie

Oh yeah sorry I forgot this happened in America

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, March 26, 2024 5:58 PM (yesterday)

i get what you're saying - america, where everybody still uses checks! - but the modern system of private banking quite literally originated on the continent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland