An Orange County bookie whose purchasers included Ippei Mizuhara, the previous interpreter for Dodgers celebrity Shohei Ohtani, has agreed to plead responsible to federal costs for working an unlawful playing enterprise.
For the report:
2:47 p.m. Aug. 1, 2024An earlier model of this text reported that Mathew Bowyer’s plea settlement was unsealed Wednesday. It was unsealed Thursday.
As a part of a plea settlement unsealed Thursday, Mathew Bowyer, 49, was charged in U.S. District Courtroom in Santa Ana with working an illegal playing enterprise, cash laundering, and signing a false tax return.
The settlement stated Bowyer’s playing enterprise had “greater than 700 bettors at instances” and “usually had gross income of properly over $2,000 on a single day.” Clients included a “skilled baseball participant for a Southern California baseball membership” and a “former minor league baseball participant.” Neither participant was named.
The ex-minor league participant’s bets included baseball video games through which the “skilled baseball participant” participated, in accordance with the settlement.
Bowyer is predicted to enter his plea on Aug. 9, federal authorities stated, and will withstand 10 years in jail on the cash laundering depend, as much as 5 years for the illegal playing enterprise depend and as much as three years for the false tax return depend. He has agreed to “cooperate absolutely,” authorities stated.
Diane Bass, Bowyer’s lawyer, stated her shopper “is wanting ahead to accepting accountability for his actions.”
In keeping with the plea settlement, Bowyer operated an unlawful bookmaking enterprise for no less than 5 years till October 2023. Federal brokers raided his San Juan Capistrano residence the identical month.
Bowyer sat atop a corporation with many staff, the settlement stated, together with on line casino hosts who referred gamblers and acquired a portion of the losses that bettors paid. Bowyer typically operated the enterprise whereas he gambled at an unnamed Las Vegas on line casino — often paying his brokers’ fee in chips. Bowyer typically collected proceeds on the on line casino from his playing enterprise with “funds in on line casino chips or in money in envelopes or baggage.”
The bookie’s best-known shopper was Mizuhara, the Japanese-language interpreter and “de facto supervisor” of Ohtani.
In keeping with Bowyer’s settlement, Mizuhara positioned no less than 19,000 bets with Bowyer’s playing enterprise from September 2021 to January 2024. Throughout that interval, Mizuhara had profitable bets of no less than $142 million and shedding bets of practically $183 million — leaving him owing the bookie round $40 million.
The settlement stated Bowyer would “bump” Mizuhara — slang for growing his betting limits — regularly.
A collection of textual content messages between Mizuhara and an individual recognized in a court docket submitting as “Bookmaker 1,” the operator of an unlawful sports activities ebook whose particulars match these of Bowyer’s operation, painting the rising stress on the interpreter to pay what he owed.
“Hey Ippie, it’s 2 o’clock on Friday,” Bookmaker 1 texted in November 2023. “I don’t know why you’re not returning my calls. I’m right here in Newport Seashore and I see [Ohtani] strolling his canine. I’m simply gonna go up and speak to him and ask how I can get in contact with you because you’re not responding? Please name me again instantly.”
The stress continued to mount in a textual content message Bookmaker 1 despatched Mizuhara in January 2024: “You’re placing me ready the place that is going to get uncontrolled. If I don’t hear from you by the top of the day it’s gonna be out of my fingers.”
The cash to finance Mizuhara’s playing, authorities later charged, got here by illicit transfers from Ohtani’s checking account.
The Occasions first reported in March that Ohtani’s representatives had accused Mizuhara of “huge theft” and notified regulation enforcement. The Dodgers fired Mizuhara and, in April, he was charged with stealing virtually $17 million from Ohtani.
Ohtani has denied any information of the playing. E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. lawyer for the Central District of California, stated throughout an April information convention that Ohtani “has been established as sufferer on this case” and lauded his cooperation with authorities.
Mizuhara pleaded responsible on June 4 to at least one depend of financial institution fraud and one depend of subscribing to a false tax return. He might be sentenced on Oct. 25.
In his plea settlement, Bowyer admitted that in 2022 he reported $607,897 in complete earnings when, in actuality, he made greater than $4 million. Bowyer owes further taxes of $1.6 million for that 12 months, not together with curiosity and penalties, in accordance with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace.
As a part of the settlement, Bowyer will forfeit $257,923 in U.S. forex and $14,830 in on line casino chips seized by regulation enforcement in October 2023.
