Ippei Mizuhara scandal takes another bizarre turn thanks to Shohei Ohtani

Shohei Ohtani's former intrepreter and close friend, Ippei Mizuhara, is currently awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to defrauding Ohtani of some $17 million dollars earlier this year. At the time, it seemed as though most of that money went toward funding (or defraying the debts from) Mizuhara's sports gambling. But a recent development suggests that Mizuhara was spending Ohtani's cash on much more than just bets.

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Shohei Ohtani asks judge to return $325,000 worth of baseball cards from Ippei Mizuhara

You'd think that Ohtani would be on cloud nine right now, fresh off leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a World Series title and capturing NL MVP honors thanks to baseball's first-ever 50-50 season. But an offseason that should be spend engaging in one long victory lap is instead being spent, at least in part, in court: According to a report from The Athletic, earlier this week Ohtani petitioned the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for a hearing to regain property that he claims was wrongfully purchased by Mizuhara.

The property in question? “A quantity of personally signed collectible baseball cards”, according to the petition. And if you're wondering why that might warrant legal action, apparently the value of said baseball cards is some $325,000. Which certainly sheds some light on the exact nature of Mizuhara's fraud, and also turns this story into something much more pernicious than a desperate man looking to pay off debt. (Or, depending on how cynical you'd like to be, a man helping a desperate friend pay off his debts.)

If Mizuhara was using his access to Ohtani's bank account to purchase memorabilia, it raises a lot of questions about just what else Mizuhara was up to, and why he felt the need to drop that big a chunk of change on some baseball cards in the first place. Maybe he was just an avid collector who really, really wanted that signed Mickey Mantle card he saw at an auction. Occam's razor, however, would suggest that Mizuhara was in far deeper to some far more irresponsible behavior than we initially gave him credit for.