After nearly a week of confusion about the actions of his now-fired former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani sat in front of reporters Monday and told his side of the story.
The gist of the Los Angeles Dodgers star's account is that Mizuhara embezzled $4.5 million from him to pay off illegal gambling debts and that Ohtani didn't know about any of this until Mizuhara told the Dodgers last week that he had a gambling problem. Crucially, Ohtani — who reportedly speaks some English but isn't fluent — was not told in the prior days about ESPN looking into the matter.