The Southern California bookmaker at the center of an explosive scandal involving the longtime interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, the M.L.B. superstar, has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that he ran an illegal sports gambling operation and cheated on taxes, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.
The bookmaker, Mathew Bowyer, 49, who lives in Orange County, is expected to plead guilty next week. Once he does, he could face a maximum sentence of more than a decade in prison.
Mr. Bowyer, who prosecutors said ran a sports-betting operation that resulted in more than $4 million in unreported income in 2022, will cooperate with the authorities as part of his plea agreement, prosecutors said. He has also agreed to forfeit about $258,000 in cash and another $14,800 in casino chips that the authorities seized last year as part of their investigation.
Although sports betting is legal in many states, including in Nevada where Mr. Bowyer did some business, it is illegal in California. And his business was unlicensed.
Among the more than 700 clients who placed bets through Mr. Bowyer’s operation were a professional baseball player for a Southern California-based team and a former minor-league baseball player, prosecutors said.
But one of his highest-profile clients was Ippei Mizuhara, who had worked as the interpreter for Mr. Ohtani ever since the baseball star came to the United States to play for the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. Mr. Ohtani, a Japanese phenom who is considered one of the greatest players in baseball history for his hitting and pitching talent, joined the Los Angeles Dodgers this season after signing one of the most lucrative sports contracts ever.
Mr. Mizuhara was abruptly fired by the Dodgers in March after he was accused of stealing from Mr. Ohtani. At first, the interpreter said Mr. Ohtani had agreed to cover his gambling losses, briefly casting a shadow over the baseball star at the start of the season.
Within days, Mr. Mizuhara acknowledged that he had actually stolen millions from Mr. Ohtani. In June, Mr. Mizuhara pleaded guilty to charges of fraud that involved the theft of almost $17 million.
The post Bookmaker for Ohtani Interpreter Plans to Plead Guilty to Federal Charges appeared first on New York Times.
