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SportsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:03 But first, Sam, let's get to the story that looks like it's coming to a conclusion.
00:08 I don't know if you feel that way.
00:10 At least that's the way it's being posed with Shohei Otani's interpreter being
00:14 charged in federal court.
00:17 Fraud charges coming in,
00:18 stealing from the player that he's working for, Shohei Otani.
00:24 And I guess that's probably the first place to go here, Sam,
00:28 is do you think that this is going to close the book, so to speak, on this?
00:33 Or do you think we have more to come?
00:34 >> Yeah, Craig, I'd have to agree.
00:38 It seems like this is coming to a favorable end for
00:41 both the Shohei Otani side and Major League Baseball.
00:45 The fact that Ipe Mizuhara was charged last week in federal court now,
00:51 that basically got federal investigators involved,
00:55 able to look at exactly what was going on and sort of answer a lot of the questions
01:00 that we had and the general public has had about was Otani involved in betting?
01:05 Did he know about this kind of thing?
01:07 Was baseball bet on?
01:08 Basically, Ipe admitted to stealing $16 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers star.
01:15 There's text messages that came out saying, this is all over for
01:18 me when he's talking to this bookie in California about what exactly went on.
01:23 And it could result in 30 years in prison for Mizuhara because of
01:28 the bank fraud charge of his former friend, former employee.
01:34 He was the interpreter for him, Otani, who largely speaks Japanese, but
01:39 you've seen recently maybe trying to dabble in English a little bit more so
01:43 you don't have to rely on someone like this, who had access to his bank account.
01:47 And really has created quite the headache for
01:50 the Dodgers star, interesting details that came out from this federal
01:56 investigation, which kind of suggests that maybe it's coming to a close,
01:59 is exactly what was bet on.
02:01 There was no baseball that they found was bet on.
02:04 Most importantly, probably, there is no evidence that Otani even knew
02:08 about this going on, or knew that his friend had been in debt massively.
02:14 I think originally when this came out, the way it was handled by Otani's team,
02:18 first kind of trying to maybe take some of the fall for his friend, but
02:23 not realizing maybe what that could actually, he would be admitting to.
02:28 That kind of created a messy situation, but
02:30 it seems like it's all getting sorted out now.
02:33 So we'll see where this goes next.
02:35 There's a report that Ipe is gonna try to do a plea deal,
02:38 which means you could get more information coming out.
02:40 Probably about the bookie that he was betting with,
02:44 who's a big bookmaker, was telling people reportedly that Otani was a client.
02:48 Which is good for business when you're an illegal bookmaker.
02:51 It makes people more confident in betting with you, legitimizes you and everything.
02:55 Interesting thing, what this could lead to for baseball if they feel like they need
03:01 to put some more reforms in afterwards.
03:03 I'm not really sure what they could have done to prevent this in the first case.
03:06 If something's illegal and someone's doing it, it's illegal.
03:10 And education can only go so far.
03:13 They already do a ton of it.
03:14 Maybe for the Japanese players coming in or more international players coming in,
03:19 more of an emphasis on making sure that they know exactly what is going on.
03:23 Instead of going through an interpreter,
03:24 cuz it could have been the case where they were giving him all this education in
03:27 English, the interpreter maybe wasn't telling him.
03:29 So it's tough when you're relying on someone like that to pretty much
03:33 tell you all the rules and everything.
03:35 So yeah, seems like it's coming to a close now.
03:38 Then probably the next page will be the aftermath and the reaction.
03:41 How do we address it?
03:42 That kind of thing.
03:43 (upbeat music)
03:45 [MUSIC]