Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter (Ippei Mizuhara) is current negotiating a deal to plead guilty for stealing millions of dollars from Ohtani to pay his gambling debt.
I haven’t seen whether the bookmaker knew that Mizuhara was paying his debt with money stolen from Ohtani. If he did know, then I suppose he could be charged with knowingly receiving stolen property. But even if the bookmaker didn’t know, given that Mizuhara’s debt to the bookmaker was paid with stolen money, can Ohtani legally demand his own money back from the bookmaker (leaving Mizuhara’s gambling debt unpaid)?
Assuming the bookmaker did not know, and had no reason to suspect, that the money was stolen then no, Ohtani can’t get it back from the bookie (unless there are special rules around gambling transactions in the jurisdiction concerned that I’m unaware of). In general if I get property in something from you in good faith, for full value, that’s mine. If you had stolen whatever it was from someone else he can’t pursue it into my hands.
There are countless cases in which people purchase (in good faith) used cars that are later discovered to have been stolen. The stolen car ends up going back to the person it was stolen from, and the buyer from whom the vehicle was clawed back is left to try to recover their money from the party who sold them the stolen vehicle.
Are transfers of stolen cash treated differently than transfers of stolen property?
I think you’ll find that stolen cars returned to their owners had never completed a proper transfer of title. OTOH, money isn’t uniquely identifiable or owned in the same manner as a car. Whether cash or some other form, money is just a representation of value.
If Ohtani could get back the money that Mizuhara gave to the bookmaker then why not all the other money that Mizuhara spent during the same time period?
How are we ascertaining that the money Mizuhara paid in rent, bought groceries with, etc., etc., wasn’t from the embezzled money?
I suppose it might hinge on where the transfers from Ohtani’s account were originally sent. If they went to Mizuhara’s personal account first, then they were comingled with Mizuhara’s own money, in which case, yes, it becomes impossible to say which of the money subsequently disbursed from Mizuhara’s account was Mizuhara’s and which was Ohtani’s. But if the transfer out of Ohtani’s account went straight to the bookmaker, then the picture is much clearer.
There’s a very similar case involving the Jacksonville Jaguars and a former employee who stole money from the organization to gamble.
According to this article, a bookmaker has no obligation under federal law to repay the party whose money was stolen. I’m not a legal expert, and I don’t think the person who wrote that article is either, but it seems to me the same law would apply to both situations. That is, I think both Ohtani and the Jacksonville Jaguars are out of luck (and their money ).
They were clawing back money from other “investors” who received profits that hadn’t really earned , not people/businesses that were paid for goods or services they had actually provided. Millions in illegal profits got clawed back from the Mets owners, but that wouldn’t have happened if Madoff had spent the money buying tickets rather than paying it out as “investment gains” .
Generally, you must surrender stolen goods even if you paid for it legally.
I found this:
“But generally, the money must be given back to the rightful owner. This assumes that the thief gives you the physical money that he stole and you still have this physical money. Things can be more complicated if the thief just gave you some money from his pocket and never mentioned that he had stolen money.”
Names on the from account aren’t typically checked when receiving money. If you buy a house, you wire money to the seller. It might come from your account, it might come from your lawyer’s escrow account, it might come from the account of your mother’s estate & her name doesn’t match yours because she remarried, or it might come from your employer’s account because you’re embezzling. Why should the receiver have to verify provenance of those funds?
This all assumes that Ohtani was really stolen from. It’s not unreasonable to presume that Mizuhara was making bets on Ohtani’s direction. If true, would mean that Ohtani would be banned from baseball for life. Big motivation for Mizuhara to take the fall.
The reports from sources coming out today are that Ohtani’s account is correct. He was the victim of a theft. The originator of the story seems to be the NY Times. At this point there is no credible source saying Ohtani was involved in gambling.
When it all occured between Ohtani and Mizuhara and Mizuhara, who is going to take the fall, who is to argue otherwise?
Who gives their “interpreter” the login and password for their bank account? And it had been going on for months if not longer. Mizuhara’s initial account was that he was betting on behalf of Ohtani, and then within a few hours he recounts that story and say’s Ohtani knew nothing.
It is a high profile federal investigation conducted by the FBI. They were looking for proof not reading newspapers. If there is no evidence otherwise then Ohtani is a victim.
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