Shohei Ohtani’s Legal Strategy Raises Eyebrows Engaging $30,000-an-Hour Attorney Burke Breitler, Possibly Consulting with Disappeared Former Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara

There has been a huge uproar in Japan and the United States.

Ippei Mizuhara, former exclusive interpreter for the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, is under suspicion for illegal gambling. The situation is such that influence on Otani, who is said to be a “treasure of the Japanese baseball world,” is inevitable.

It is known that Mr. Mizuhara, after indulging in illegal gambling, created a large debt to a bookmaker, and that at least $4.5 million (approximately 680 million yen) was electronically transferred from Otani’s account. At first, Mizuhara testified to the U.S. sports network ESPN that Otani shouldered his share of the losses. However, he later retracted his statement and was accused of grand larceny.

If Otani had shouldered the debt, he would have been treated as a “helper” and could have been severely penalized by MLB, so many people in the U.S. believe that the team changed Mizuhara’s testimony in a hurry. sportswriter).

Needless to say, the key person is Mizuhara, and the media is following his whereabouts. The Japanese and U.S. media have gathered at a luxury hotel in Seoul and at Incheon International Airport, where the Dodgers were staying, but his whereabouts have yet to be revealed.

The moment he returns to the U.S., he could be taken into custody,” said Dodger. It is unlikely that he will “escape” as Gurnsey did, but before he returns to the U.S., he needs to work out a detailed story with the baseball team and Otani’s agent. He is expected to remain in hiding for a while.

According to some sources, Mizuhara has already left Korea and departed for a “third country” that is not Japan or the United States.

Mizuhara himself did not expect the furor to escalate to this level. He is now thinking of ways to keep Otani as “unscathed” as possible. Mizuhara seems prepared to accept the worst-case scenario of arrest.

Otani is represented by the Burke Bretler Law Firm, whose clients include Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio. Blair Burke represented DiCaprio against a woman who allegedly hit DiCaprio in the face with a bottle in ’10 and seriously injured him. The woman was found guilty. Andrew Bretler also represented Prince Andrew of England in ’21 in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sexually pimping children to celebrities in various countries, and settled with the woman.

It seems that it is mainly Mr. Brettler who gives pointers to the Otani side, and his alias is “Prince Andrew’s Pitbull. His nickname is “Prince Andrew’s Pitbull,” because he made a name for himself by defending the aforementioned Prince Andrew.

He is one of the most popular lawyers in Hollywood. Mr. Brettler’s hourly wage is said to be a whopping $2,000 (about ¥300,000). As his nickname “Pitbull” suggests, he is aggressive toward his opponents and obedient and kind to his clients.

The IRS (Internal Revenue Service), the equivalent of Japan’s IRS, has already launched an investigation into the Mizuhara interpreter, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is working on the “male operator” of illegal gambling, and MLB has also launched its own investigation. How can Shohei Ohtani be protected from such agencies? Let’s see what Mr. Bretney can do.

In the United States, Otani is also under scrutiny. What will be the end result of the fiasco that broke out immediately after the opening of the Major League Baseball season?