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Ohtani admitted to having a document in front of him, but it looking up and talking a lot more than expected. He's actually talking a lot more than I expected. Also, we're past the five minute mark.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:50
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My God, a translator taking notes and discussing things back and forth in Japanese to make clarifications. I wonder if this will be the new translator from here on out.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:54
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Ohtani basically saying he didn't know anything at all until recently. Must be nice to not notice $4.5 MM missing in the bank account
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Mar 25, 2024 22:58
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MrMidnight posted:Ohtani basically saying he didn't know anything at all until recently. Must be nice to not notice $4.5 MM missing in the bank account
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Mar 25, 2024 22:59
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About twelve minutes, so the under seventeen minutes hits! Cash in your slips, ladies and gentlemen! Ohtani was looking at the camera and talking without staring at a piece of paper much at all. I'd imagine that's about as well as it could have gone. If this all stands as it was just told, I really hope Ippei gets some help. What a catastrophic story of addiction parlaying into betrayal of a very best friend.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:00
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Captain Log posted:My God, a translator taking notes and discussing things back and forth in Japanese to make clarifications.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:01
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https://twitter.com/fabianardaya/status/1772380514151764418?s=46&t=mLlHkULTWtGiAcwn5da2fQ
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Mar 25, 2024 23:03
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Yeah talk about throwing away a great job and friendship in one go though I'm sure there's some conflicting info between Ohtani's statement and what's in the ESPN piece.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:03
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MrMidnight posted:Yeah talk about throwing away a great job and friendship in one go though I'm sure there's some conflicting info between Ohtani's statement and what's in the ESPN piece.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:05
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bawfuls posted:Yes, Will Ireton has worked for the Dodgers for years now and will likely be Ohtani's translator for the foreseeable future. If you're a translator who likes to travel, could there be a better job on the planet? gently caress, I used to travel for a living around America to the tune of 180 overnights in a ten month period. I loved it, and I was staying in LaQuintas with a $30 per diem on a debit card I had to itemize. MrMidnight posted:Yeah talk about throwing away a great job and friendship in one go though I'm sure there's some conflicting info between Ohtani's statement and what's in the ESPN piece. God, it's so loving depressing. But I'm coming from the place of an eight year plus sober alcoholic, so I know how low addiction can put a person.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:05
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Is the gist of the Ohtani situation that his translator made a bunch of bets on games using money from Ohtani's bank account without his knowledge, and it's a betrayal because him and his translator were previously friends?
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Mar 25, 2024 23:07
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FlamingLiberal posted:Well wasn't Ippei's claim that Shohei was aware of the transfers? They are clearly saying that Shohei had no knowledge whatsoever of what Ippei was doing. Which again raises the question of how did he have access to Shohei's accounts?? I know I'm on Ohtani's side with all this poo poo. But I don't think it's that hard to believe a guy who spends 365 days a year with a person, likely handling every aspect of their life, could slice away six-figure chunks from a guy worth about a billion.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:07
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Ippei has apparently been a con man all his life, it's not like he just contracted a gambling addiction and descended into shadiness a year ago.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:11
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Captain Log posted:I know I'm on Ohtani's side with all this poo poo. But I don't think it's that hard to believe a guy who spends 365 days a year with a person, likely handling every aspect of their life, could slice away six-figure chunks from a guy worth about a billion.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:11
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explosivo posted:Is the gist of the Ohtani situation that his translator made a bunch of bets on games using money from Ohtani's bank account without his knowledge, and it's a betrayal because him and his translator were previously friends? Ohtani's translator became his best friend to the point where they literally spent 365 days a year together, including a workout and meal on Christmas Day. Ohtani called him a brother. Ippei, his translator, caught for him at the home run derby, was with Ohtani at every function, and was beloved by the fanbase. Ippei got in with an illegal bookie in California, where they live. Lost a million in a year, then got deeper and deeper. Baseball players are allowed to bet on non-baseball things. But only through legal means. Money was wired from Ohtani's account to cover Ippei's losses. Ippei told the media Ohtani knew all of this, and was covering his losses as a friend. Then his story changed two or three times. Now it looks like Ohtani never knew anything about it, and turned the matter over to the authorities. tldr - His translator became a best friend, started betting way over his head, then used his absurdly rich best friend's money to cover his losses in an illegal manner while lying to everyone.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:11
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Ohtani was pretty unambiguous with that statement. His position is that Ippei stole from him and then lied about it to the media and the team when things came out last week. That's obviously a serious accusation. If that isn't what happened, Ippei has a HUGE incentive to push back on that account of events since it implicates him in even more serious crimes than simply betting with an illegal bookie. So who's going to get a follow up interview with Ippei now? Will his attorney release a statement?
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Mar 25, 2024 23:11
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Wow, thank you. This is the most succinct recap of this i've seen so far hah.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:14
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Ippei will not be taking questions or stepping foot on American soil again, I would imagine.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:17
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Captain Log posted:I know I'm on Ohtani's side with all this poo poo. But I don't think it's that hard to believe a guy who spends 365 days a year with a person, likely handling every aspect of their life, could slice away six-figure chunks from a guy worth about a billion. It's not easy to transfer that kind of money. Close friends or not, it would be really hard to transfer that money without anyone, including accountants and financial advisors noticing. Ippei would have to have had extroadinary access to Ohtani's financials. Regardless, it's a criminal matter now and shouldn't be hard for the Feds to figure out who and how the money was transferred.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:25
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I’m still leaning that Ippei’s initial story is as close to the truth as we’ve heard so far and Ohtani’s camp began doing some serious backpedaling once they realized how much they hosed up in putting him at risk for wire fraud charges.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:26
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Yeah. The part that is hard to explain is the $4.5m wire DIRECTLY from Ohtani's account. It could be as simple as Ippei gambling and Shohei trying to help without realizing that its a crime. Arguing that he was robbed is likely a necessary fig leaf to avoid federal prosecution. Not sure it'll work, though.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:29
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Historically, MLB loves a fall guy (sometimes eight at once) for systemic issues but this Ohtani story is just getting started.Popete posted:So that company nVenue I Googled them and their tagline is "nVenue Real-Time Micro-Bets for Sports", they aren't even trying to pretend it's anything but sports betting garbage. Just so this doesn’t slip by, I highly highly recommend listening to that Fangraphs podcast because reading between the lines this isn’t meant to support sports betting, it’s meant to spur it. Any connection these stats have to reality is a mere coincidence,; also coincidentally I don’t see Tim Cook & Co. ignoring a shot at getting their 30% cut of the action indefinitely as they invest more in sports. Luckily Apple makes their games highly skippable.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:30
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Ohtani's position is quite clear at this point, and with this kind of financial crime alleged it's only a matter of time before the feds get to the bottom of it. It would be absolutely shocking incompetence on the part of Ohtani's legal team if they sent him out there today to lie about this, given the stakes. Given this, I'm less inclined to believe Ippei's first version of events now. Because if Ohtani knowingly wired money to an illegal bookie, that is 100% going to be proven eventually by investigators. bawfuls fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 23:30
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bawfuls posted:Ohtani's position is quite clear at this point, and with this kind of financial crime alleged it's only a matter of time before the feds get to the bottom of it. Either his lawyers are incompetent or his accountants are.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:32
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The kind of incompetence like sending the responsible party out there to explain the crimes in the first place?
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Mar 25, 2024 23:33
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live with fruit posted:Either his lawyers are incompetent or his accountants are. He better hope it's the latter
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Mar 25, 2024 23:34
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Bogus Adventure posted:Yeah. It wasn't 4.5 million, it was a series of $500k transfers. From the ESPN article. quote:ESPN had reviewed bank information showing Ohtani's name on two $500,000 payments sent in September and October.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:34
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Bogus Adventure posted:The kind of incompetence like sending the responsible party out there to explain the crimes in the first place?
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Mar 25, 2024 23:36
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Popete posted:It wasn't 4.5 million, it was a series of $500k transfers. From the ESPN article. I appreciate the correction, although I believe my original point of money coming from Ohtani's account stands.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:37
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I don’t know what really happened (only two people really do) but speaking as someone who has caught embezzlement after accountants did not, albeit at a much smaller scale but much greater percentage of a company’s balance sheet, a few things probably happened that would explain why no one caught this. 1) The $4.5MM may not have been just one transfer, especially if this was over the course of a year. Smaller, more numerous transfers are very easy to miss especially if they’re across a similar period. The motherfucker I caught was paying his rent so it just looked like a monthly expense. 2) Ippei, since he’s Ohtani’s interpreter, could easily have been snowing the accountants if they didn’t speak Japanese. He could control the flow of information and just said Ohtani was cool with any transfer being made. 3) Shohei did know about it and was trying to keep his friend’s legs attached to his body. Alternative: 4) Shohei bet on the Generals roughly 400 times.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:38
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4) Is the most likely account. I mean, the odds are a million to one and they're due for a win any day now!
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Mar 25, 2024 23:40
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Shohei's account better be the truth, because with MLB and probably the Feds sniffing around (considering this is already tied into an ongoing federal investigation), if he's lying they are going to find out.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:40
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We're about a week out from finding out Ippei is a moonie lol
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Mar 25, 2024 23:40
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Captain Log posted:My God, a translator taking notes and discussing things back and forth in Japanese to make clarifications. This is Kenta Maeda's translator. He'll be excellent until about June and then hurt his vocal chords.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:41
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Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that Ohtani just didn’t know that 4.5 million dollars was wired from his account over however long this was taking place. If Ohtani has people in place to manage his stuff then how did no one notice those wires and raise an internal flag? This doesn’t pass the sniff test
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Mar 25, 2024 23:42
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Athletes get ripped off by friends/family/agents/business partners/accountants etc. all the time, I don't get why people can't wrap their heads around it happening to Ohtani. It didn't take reporters much work to uncover that Ippei was a fraud that lied on his résumé so it's pretty obvious that Ohtani didn't do his due diligence, is overly trusting, or both.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:43
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Well Played Mauer posted:
These two at least seem to be the linchpins of the existing narrative. I really hate this. At least there weren't any bets on baseball. As far as we know.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:43
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https://x.com/pauliesopinions/status/1772392876854382789?s=46&t=qe_Y8YJnNikGLo_JUDPyAQ
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Mar 25, 2024 23:44
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Carlosologist posted:Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that Ohtani just didn’t know that 4.5 million dollars was wired from his account over however long this was taking place. If Ohtani has people in place to manage his stuff then how did no one notice those wires and raise an internal flag? This doesn’t pass the sniff test Dude is making obscene amounts of money. He's not checking his bank app every day.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:44
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Niwrad posted:It's not easy to transfer that kind of money. Close friends or not, it would be really hard to transfer that money without anyone, including accountants and financial advisors noticing. Ippei would have to have had extroadinary access to Ohtani's financials. I can barely transfer a few thousand dollars from my wife’s account to mine, in the same bank, without them putting a hold on her account, and I can’t pull more than like $500/day out of the ATM. There’s no sensible way that Ippei could drain him of millions without anyone noticing.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:48
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