WEB DESK: Ippei Mizuhara, 39, pleaded guilty to fraud after using millions of dollars to cover substantial gambling losses.
According to the media reports, former interpreter was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for stealing $17m from Los Angeles star Shohei Ohtani to pay off gambling debts, according to local media reports.
Ippei Mizuhara, the one-time translator and de facto manager of Ohtani, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, the punishment prosecutors had sought, and also ordered by US district judge John Holcomb to pay restitution of over $18m, media reported
Mizuhara, 39, pleaded guilty to felony bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return last year, according to his plea deal previously filed in US district court in Los Angeles.
Mizuhara was accused of embezzling nearly $17mfrom a bank account of Ohtani’s that Mizuhara had helped open in Phoenix in 2018, and transferring the funds without Ohtani’s knowledge to an illegal bookmaking operation to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debts.
