Ippei did EVERYTHING for Ohtani. He was his conceirge. Certainly Ippei got Ohtani’s lunch and placed his bets.
A thought just occurred to me. Ippei was paid $300-500k by Dodgers but they played just one game. Ippei was making $80k with the Angels
$80k and a line of credit for $4.5m?
If all concerned had stuck with the first story… Ippei was a degen and Ohtani did the sweet and honorable thing and paid off his debt… Ohtani looks like a great friend and tremendous human being.
Instead they changed the story to theft. Do you know how hard it is these days to make multiple $500,000 withdrawals from a bank? The number of people you would have to deal with? People go to jail for bank theft.
Ohtani’s crew decided to escalate for a reason. They are electing to take on bigger risk.