One other chapter is being written within the Shohei Ohtani-Ippei Mizuhara saga.
The Los Angeles Dodgers star Ohtani has petitioned a federal decide this week for possession of $325,000 price of baseball playing cards that had been allegedly bought fraudulently by his ex-interpreter Mizuhara, Noah Furtado of The Athletic reported Wednesday.
The report provides that Mizuhara purchased baseball playing cards from on-line retailers eBay and WhatNot between January and March 2024 with the intention of reselling them. The playing cards had been then seized from Mizuhara by authorities in reference to Mizuhara’s fraud case.
Ohtani is alleging that the playing cards had been wrongfully bought utilizing his cash and thus claims that they belong to him. The three-time MVP can be searching for the return of “a amount of personally signed collectible baseball playing cards” that had been seized from Mizuhara’s possession too. As such, Ohtani is asking for a listening to from the U.S. District Court docket for the Central District of California to argue his rightful possession of the gadgets.
Mizuhara, Ohtani’s longtime former translator and confidant, pleaded guilty back in May to financial institution and tax fraud prices associated to his theft of almost $17 million from Ohtani’s checking account. Whereas the federal investigation revealed that Mizuhara used the funds to repay an unlawful bookie (an operation that also ensnared an ex-Ohtani teammate), Ohtani is alleging that Mizuhara used his cash to buy collectibles as nicely.
