ESPN’s 30 for 30 will launch the first two of six podcast episodes July 28 examining the gambling scandal that resulted in Shohei Ohtani‘s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara going to prison for stealing nearly $17 million from the baseball superstar and gambling it away.
The podcast, titled “The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani” is told by Tisha Thompson, the ESPN investigative reporter who broke the story in March 2024.
Ohtani,who signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers in December 2023 after playing six years with the Angels, apparently trusted Mizuhara implicitly. He said he was unaware that the interpreter regularly ransacked his bank account for more than two years.
The podcast will recount Mizuhara’s life before he began working for Ohtani in 2013 when both were with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan. When Ohtani moved to the United States to play for the Angels in 2018, Mizuhara came with him.
Thompson interviews childhood friends and colleagues of Mizuhara, but the interview that will generate the greatest interest is a 90-minute phone call she had with him 16 hours before she published the story. Thompson got permission from Mizuhara to tape the call and it remains the only interview he has given.
Mizuhara told her that Ohtani had helped him pay off his gambling debts, a story he recanted a day later. The Dodgers fired him the same day they opened the 2024 season with a game against the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.
IRS special agent Chris Seymour gave Thompson the first interview of his career, and what he and prosecutors say about Mizuhara’s motive goes beyond the narrative that he had a gambling addiction.
Another interview by Thompson is with bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, who explains on tape that his relationship with Mizuhara began during a hotel poker game with Angels players. Bowyer pleaded guilty last year to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the IRS.
Episodes one and two — “The Letter O” and “The Interview” — will debut July 28, followed by episodes dropping every Tuesday and Thursday through August 11.
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