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Ippei Mizuahara was sentenced by United States District Judge John W. Holcomb, who also ordered him to pay $16,975,010 in restitution to Ohtani and $1,149,400 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Mizuhara pleaded guilty in June 2024 to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

Ex-MLB interpreter sentenced to 57 months in prison for $17 million theft  

SANTA ANA, Calif. — On Feb. 6, 2025, Ippei Mizuhara, a former Japanese-language interpreter was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for illegally — and without authorization — transferring nearly $17 million from the bank account of Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani to pay off his own substantial gambling debts incurred with an illegal bookmaking operation and for signing a false tax return, following a joint Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), IRS Criminal Investigation probe.

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Mizuahara was sentenced by United States District Judge John W. Holcomb, who also ordered him to pay $16,975,010 in restitution to Ohtani and $1,149,400 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Mizuhara pleaded guilty in June 2024 to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

“Mr. Mizuhara is yet another example of how those in a position of trust can take advantage of a relationship and defraud the government,” said HSI Los Angeles acting Special Agent in Charge John Pasciucco. “The HSI-led El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force will leverage all partnerships to locate and bring to justice those who commit financial crimes, especially those who think they can hide in plain sight.”

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Mizuhara was the translator and de facto manager of MLB star Shohei Ohtani. As part of his job duties, Mizuhara regularly interacted with Ohtani’s sports agents and financial advisors — who did not speak Japanese — on behalf of Ohtani, who did not speak English. Although Mizuhara was an employee of the Los Angeles Angels MLB team, for whom Ohtani played from 2018 to 2023, and, later, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom Ohtani has played since 2024, Ohtani paid him separately for the additional work of driving him to meetings and interpreting for non-baseball-related activities.

 

In March 2018, Mizuhara accompanied Ohtani to a bank in Phoenix to help him open a bank account to deposit his MLB salary. Inside the bank branch, Mizuhara interpreted for Ohtani when the bank employee provided Ohtani the login information for this bank account.😊

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Beginning in September 2021, Mizuhara began placing sports bets with an illegal bookmaker. Shortly thereafter, Mizuhara began to lose bets and quickly became indebted to the bookmaker. Unable to pay his gambling debts, Mizuhara orchestrated a scheme to deceive and cheat the bank to fraudulently obtain money from the account.

From no later than November 2021 to March 2024, Mizuhara used Ohtani’s password to successfully sign into the bank account and then changed the account’s security protocols without Ohtani’s knowledge or permission. Specifically, Mizuhara changed the registered email address and telephone number on the account so bank employees would call him — not Ohtani — when attempting to verify wire transfers from the account.

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Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani, using his personal identifying information to deceive the bank’s employees into authorizing wire transfers from the bank account. In total, Mizuhara called the bank and impersonated Ohtani on approximately 24 occasions.

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In addition, in September 2023, Mizuhara needed $60,000 worth of dental work and Ohtani agreed to pay for it via a check drawn on a business account at a different bank. However, Mizuhara provided his dentist Ohtani’s debit card number for the bank account Ohtani had opened in Phoenix, charged $60,000 to that account, then deposited the $60,000 check into Mizuhara’s personal bank account.

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From January 2024 to March 2024, Mizuhara purchased approximately $325,000 worth of baseball cards from online resellers such as eBay from Ohtani’s bank account with the intent to resell them later and for his own personal benefit.

When Ohtani’s sports agent and financial advisors asked Mizuhara for access to the bank account, Mizuhara lied and said Ohtani did not want them to access the account because it was private. In fact, Mizuhara did not want them to know that he had been stealing from Ohtani and had fraudulently obtained more than $16,975,010 from him.

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In February 2024, he willfully made and subscribed to a false individual federal income tax return for the tax year 2022. On that tax return, Mizuhara falsely claimed that his total taxable income for that year was $136,865 when in fact he knew the amount was substantially higher and he knowingly failed to report additional income of $4.1 million.

The HSI Los Angeles El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force conducted this investigation collaboratively with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division​

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A letter to Kendrick Lamar & Drake

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Drake (Left) and Kendrick Lamar

End the Bombast

,​​What do you think about the supercilious fued of these two mega rap stars? As a rule, we don't step into public spats so frivolous and disdainful as this one, but it's time a voice of reason straddled the bear scat, and said "hold up!" to the two. — the editor

Drake and Kendrick, we are going to shine a light on your excrement for only a few moments to to register our disdain for the public regurgitation between two intelligent men who aren't demonstrating very much intelligence and wisdom at this time.

Why not sheath your verbal sabers, declare peace, and apologize like mature men. There's more than enough love, respect and adoration to go around ad infinitum for the both of you. Black Americans are surrounded by enemies who seek our annihiilation, as it is. Must we war within our very gates?

The optics of your callous disregard for one another speak volumes. If you have no admiration for one another, why should any other race of people? A people with scorn for their own are reprobate. Without love you have nothing my brothers.

 
Who is really behind this skirmish — this contrived mishmash? The record company? That If so, that's just absurd; you both operate under the aegis of Universal. That makes you pawns in a modern system of slavery. Somebody is willing to hand you untold wealth, and at the same time augment a climate of strife appealing to separate fan bases, contributing only to social and moral turpitude in the community defiling the Black race. Write this in one of your future songs!

Drake, Kendrick ... you need to grow up!

I appeal to you to extinguish this "scorched brother" campaign. With your music gifts, bring the race together. Show your hundreds of millions of fans the world over a "lighted path." You are the true wisdom-griots of the globe—not Trump, Putin, Musk or any of the other heartless clown minstrels. 

 
You are more famous than ninety-nine percent of the inhabitants of Earth
richer than ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all homo sapiens ... . Why isn't this enough? Why must you be king too? Why do you verbally eviscerate one another with public ridicule? Freedom to be free from the brainwashing of Willie Lynch is in order. Slavery is over. We are free to be free. Martin said it best—"LET FREEDOM RING!"
Opt for peace and end this conflagration.

That would be grand
!

REPARATIONS: 40 ACRES?

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Sean Combs

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Feds ask judge to keep Diddy jailed ahead of sex trafficking trial

Prosecutors decried Sean Combs' latest request for bail as an example of a wealthy defendant paying his way out of custody.”
 

By JOSH RUSSELL, Contributing Writer​

MANHATTAN (CN)—A judge in New York federal court will decide next week whether entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs should remain jailed on sex-trafficking conspiracy charges.

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US District Judge Arun Subramanian on Friday, Nov. 22, held a two-hour bail hearing in Manhattan federal court, but he didn't immediately rule on the latest application by the Bad Boy Records founder to be released from the Brooklyn jail where he's been detained since September.

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Subramanian, the Joe Biden-appointed judge now presiding over the case, promised to publish a written opinion by next week.

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Combs’ defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo told Subramanian, Friday, that his legal team has secured a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He said Combs could be confined there under “a very, very rigorous set of conditions,” including strict 24/7 monitoring by a private security firm.

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His attorneys argued the current conditions of confinement at Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn infringe on his constitutional rights to participate in his own defense.

 

Pushing back, prosecutors said Combs’ latest motion for bail “amounts to the defendant paying his way out of custody.” The renewed bail application, they argued in a court filing, ignores “significant evidence” that “the defendant is a violent, serial abuser who uses his vast wealth and position in the entertainment industry to conceal his illegal conduct and prevent victims of, and witnesses to, his abuse from coming forward.”

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“In light of the well-documented danger posed by the defendant, the updated proposed conditions of release are woefully insufficient to assure the safety of the community and integrity of these proceedings,” they wrote in an opposition brief. “Indeed, the defendant’s continued obstructive conduct confirms the conclusion reached by two other courts: no set of conditions can meet that task.”

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Combs, 54, has been detained since he was arrested in September on a three-count criminal indictment.

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That indictment accused Combs of a sprawling sex-trafficking conspiracy involving physical abuse, drug-fueled sexual predation, and surreptitious video recording. He has pleaded not guilty on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.

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Three judges have already separately rejected Combs’ successive applications for bail.

His first request — a proposed $50 million package — was rejected by a federal magistrate judge at his initial presentment in the Southern District of New York. That proposed deal was to be secured by Combs' $48 million Miami mansion.

 

His second request for release on bail was denied again by Barack Obama-appointed US District Judge Andrew Carter.

 

His third request, before Second Circuit Court of Appeals, was also denied last month by US Circuit Judge William J. Nardini, a Donald Trump appointee. His sealed and pending appeal for bail before a three-judge panel was thus put on ice while Combs returned to the lower court to ask for bail once again.

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In his latest bid, Combs argued that former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was recently released on a $10 million bond amid what Combs called “considerably worse” sex-trafficking conspiracy charges.

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Prosecutors responded that Jeffries’ case is distinct from Combs' because of Jeffries' advanced age (80) and the relative lack of alleged violence.

 

By contrast, Assistant US. Attorney Christy Slavik said the “significant level of violence” in Combs’ case makes it “much more comparable” to recent sex-trafficking conspiracy cases against R. KellyKeith Raniere, and Lawrence Ray. Those defendants were all detained before trial and ultimately convicted.

 

“This is a case about violence,” Slavik said. “He’s subjected individuals around him — employees, romantic partners, strangers — to physical violence.”

 

Slavik directed the judge’s attention to a 2016 episode at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, where Combs was captured on surveillance video violently assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hallway. He later allegedly attempted to bribe hotel security to coverup the attack.

 

“This video is evidence that the defendant is a violent abuser,” she said. “He's a danger to the community.”

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A representative for the federal pretrial service office said Friday that they found Combs' proposed bail conditions insufficient to ensure his court appearances.

 

Combs is represented by defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who also handled the defense for NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere’s sex-trafficking trial in Brooklyn federal court.

 

He is currently scheduled to begin trial in Manhattan federal court on May 5, 2025.

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Categories / Civil RightsCriminalEntertainment

Kanye West seeks new lawyer as multiple default judgments loom

"We are trying in vain to retain counsel," one lawyer representing the rapper's interests told a judge on Tuesday. "We are interviewing several firms. For one reason or another, it has failed to work out."

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BY HILLEL ARON, Contributing Writer

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LOS ANGELES (CN) — Ye, the rapper and fashion mogul also known as Kanye West, needs a new lawyer — and fast.

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The 47-year-old Grammy-winning hip-hop star has been the target of numerous lawsuits over the last few years, almost too many to recount.

 

This, perhaps, is not all that unusual for a person as famous and as controversial as Ye. But the complaints paint a stark portrait of bizarre behavior, far beyond the normal level of celebrity eccentricity.​

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Kayne West

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What's more, he keeps firing his attorneys — or stops speaking to and paying them, causing them to quit, according to court records.

 

This practice has left him facing a number of default judgment motions, including one filed by Isiah Meadows, who worked as an assistant principal at Donna Academy, an unaccredited Christian private school founded by Ye that was only open for about year.

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On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Manoj Shah, managing partner at Brand Counsel — a lawyer specializing in brands and not, say, civil litigation — appeared in court telephonically to ask the judge for more time.

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"We are trying in vain to retain counsel," Shah told the judge. "We are interviewing several firms. For one reason or another, it has failed to work out. Our goal is to have counsel and participate in the defense."

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Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Christopher Lui was sympathetic.

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"If there’s some effort trying to get counsel, it would not make sense to enter a default," Lui said. "But this can’t continue forever. If a substitute counsel is going to come in, it has to be done quickly."

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The judge gave Ye one month to find a new lawyer. If he fails to do so, he'll be found in default — a victory for the plaintiff, Meadows, which would eventually lead to a monetary judgment against Ye.

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"It’s an odd situation," said Meadows' attorney, Ron Zambrano, the employment litigation chair at West Coast Trial Lawyers, in a phone interview after the hearing. "This is the first time we've heard there’s an attorney representing his interests.

 

"Whoever the next attorney is, there’s a long history of people not getting paid by Kanye West, which is part of the problem. But we’re gonna move forward. He’s going to have to pay attention to this case somehow.," Zambrano said.

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He added: "This just delays the inevitable in my opinion. There’s some very serious things he did that he’s going to have reckon with." When asked why Ye had not been participating in the litigation against him Zambrano opined: "I just think that sometimes he has the attention span of a goldfish."

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Shah did not return a phone call requesting an interview.

Meadows is just one of many former employees to have sued Ye over the last few years.

 

Many of them worked for the short-lived Donda Academy, including three former teachers suing Ye and the school for discrimination, saying they were fired for raising concerns about "sanitation, health, safety [and] education standards."

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Their complaint gave a behind-the-curtain look at the $15,000-a-year private school: students ate sushi for lunch every day; tables, chairs, crossword puzzles and coloring books were all strictly forbidden. 

 

Students and teachers had to wear all-black Balenciaga uniforms designed by Ye; and the second floor of the school was off limits because, according to the plaintiffs, Ye "was reportedly afraid of stairs."

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In his lawsuit, Meadows says he was fired after raising health and safety concerns about the school, such as an overflowing sceptic tank, a lack of hot water, and a skylight without glass — essentially a hole in the roof — "because West expressed that he did not like glass."

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Benjamin Provo worked as a security guard for Donda Academy and for Ye himself. He says, in his lawsuit, that he was ordered, by Ye, "to prevent paparazzi from interacting with Kanye by any means necessary, including acts of violence."

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Trevor Phillips, who worked for both Donda Academy and Ye's fashion brand, is suing the rapper and entrepreneur for discrimination and other labor code violations. He accuses Ye of, among other things, spewing a litany of "antisemitic tropes and lies," including, at times, praising [Adolph] Hitler.

 

According to the suit, West once said: “Hitler was great. Hitler was an innovator! He invented so many things. He’s the reason we have cars.”

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Both Phillips and Provo have also filed motions for default, saying Ye has no attorney and has stopped communicating with plaintiff attorneys.

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Last month, West was hit with two more salacious lawsuits, one by an unnamed fixer who says he worked as "director of intelligence" for Ye who sued the rapper for unpaid wages.

 

In his complaint, he says he was once tasked with investigating the Kardashian family for "supposed various criminal links Ye believed they had with criminal enterprises, including alleged sex trafficking.”

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Ye's former assistant Lauren Pisciotta sued the recording artist claiming sexual harassment and sexual battery, calling him, in the most recent version of her complaint,

 

"a manipulative, dangerous, premeditative, sadistic groomer with an explosive temper." Pisciotta says that among other things, Ye drugged and sexually assaulted her at a recording session with Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is himself now in jail, awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

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Categories / CourtsEmploymentEntertainment

Zelenskyy halts White House visit after falling out with Trump 

(CN) — In extraordinarily heated scenes inside the Oval Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in front of the world's media before cutting short his Friday visit to the White House.

 

Zelenskyy arrived at the White House to sign a sweeping Ukrainian economic development deal with Trump, but the Oval Office meeting went badly off course as the two sides repeatedly disagreed. The deal was reportedly not signed and a news conference was canceled.

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In a statement, Trump said Zelenskyy was “not ready for peace” and that he “disrespected the United States in its cherished Oval Office.” Trump ended his statement by saying, “he can come back when he is ready for peace.”

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The dramatic falling out had the potential to leave relations between Ukraine and the U.S. badly damaged. It also threw into jeopardy the continued military support from the U.S. to Ukraine as it struggles to hold off Russian advances across the frontlines in Ukraine.

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The Oval Office hostilities were sparked by Trump's insistence on ending the war with a ceasefire and Zelenskyy saying Ukraine would only feel safe once Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops were driven from Ukrainian territories and his country brought under Western military protection.

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Trump and Zelenskyy took questions from journalists over the course of 50 minutes. As the meeting evolved the Ukrainian leader grew more uncomfortable and combative while Trump portrayed himself as a “peacemaker” who's capable of standing up to Putin.

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Trump accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War III” by not going along with his plans to broker a peace deal with Putin. He repeated that Zelenskyy's had a very “weak hand” and that he needed to agree to a ceasefire.

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But Zelenskyy insisted Ukraine could not allow Russia to retain territories it has occupied and that Putin's goal was to destroy Ukraine as a country. He claimed Putin would attack the Baltic nations and Poland in a bid to reconstitute the former Soviet Union unless he is stopped in Ukraine.

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“Putin wants to bring them back to his empire,” Zelenskyy said and added that in that scenario American troops would be forced to fight Russia.

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Zelenskyy said Ukraine must be provided more weapons and U.S. protection to defeat Putin.

“He hates Ukrainians, he thinks we are not a nation,” Zelenskyy said. “He wants to destroy us.”

 

Trump retorted that he would be able to get Putin to agree to a peace deal and end the war. He rejected Zelenskyy's demands for American security guarantees and argued a deal allowing the U.S. to have a stake in developing Ukraine's minerals would serve as a security guarantee. 

 

“Your country is in big trouble. You're not winning,” Trump told Zelenskyy. “You have a damn good chance of coming out OK because of us …. We gave you military equipment ... If you didn't have our military equipment, this war would've been over in two weeks.”

 

The discussions grew extremely tense when Vance spoke out against Zelenskyy for seeking to continue the war.

 

“I think it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance said.

 

Vance said Zelenskyy “should be thanking the president” for trying to bring the war to an end when Ukraine is “forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.”

European leaders rallied to Zelenskyy's defense while reaction in the U.S. split along party lines.

 

“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, on social media. The Trump administration has been accused of cozying up to Putin in talks over Ukraine.

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