The ongoing saga involving the gambling debts of Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara will be serialized for television.
Mizuhara recently pled guilty to bank fraud and signing a false tax return that could see him land in prison for over 30 years after stealing $17million from the Los Angeles Dodgers star.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Lionsgate Television is working on making a scripted series based on the scandal.
This show will be following Ohtani’s story and his rise to becoming one of the most popular baseball players in the world.
But a big portion of the story will involve the moment he heard the news that Mizuhara stole tens of millions to pay off gambling debts.
That happened earlier this year and the Dodgers fired him after hearing about the allegations.
A serialized TV show about Shohei Ohtani and the gambling scandal involving his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, is set to be produced and released through Lionsgate Entertainment
Mizuhara is facing a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. He has been free on a $25k bond
Mizuhara reportedly wired money to ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ star Ryan Boyajian
Mizuhara is expected to officially enter a guilty plea ‘in the coming weeks,’ with his arraignment scheduled for May 14. The plea agreement says Mizuhara will be required to pay Ohtani restitution that could total nearly $17M, as well as more than $1M to the IRS. Those amounts could change prior to sentencing.
Mizuhara’s winning bets totaled over $142M, which he deposited in his own bank account rather than Ohtani’s.
However, his losing bets were around $183M, a net loss of nearly $41M. He did not wager on baseball.
Mizuhara helped Ohtani open a bank account back in 2018 and began stealing money from that account in 2021, according to the plea agreement. At one point, Mizuhara changed the security protocols, email and phone number associated with it so that calls came directly to him, not Ohtani, when the back was trying to verify wire transfers. Mizuhara admitted to impersonating Ohtani to the bank about 24 times, according to the agreement.
Mizuhara also admitted to falsifying his 2022 tax returns, underreporting his income by more than $4 million.
It was revealed on Wednesday that Real Housewives star Ryan Boyajian was an associate of bookmaker Mathew Bowyer. Mizuhara would wire money to Boyajian in order to pay off his debts.
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