Footnote

the record.

Good morning, Your Honor.

“Michael Friedman for Mr. Mizuhara, who's present with me on Bond.”

In May 2024, less than two months after my story on EPA and show hey broke, EPA appeared in court. It was quick, just five minutes long. The federal government had charged EPA with bank fraud and tax fraud. He would plead guilty to both.

After the hearing, EPA left the courtroom. He stared straight ahead as he walked towards the elevator.

During our interview, he had told me things he had never told anyone else.

Not even his wife, but we had never met in person. As I walked next to him in the courthouse, I was pretty sure he did it recognized me.

“So as we moved through the hallway, I said to him, quietly, EPA, it's Tisha.”

He slowly turned his head and looked at me for a moment, before nodding, just once, as if to acknowledge me, before turning his head back to stare over the crowd. It's the only time I saw him react to anything a reporter said to him throughout his case. When EPA stepped into the elevator, he kept his eyes fixed on the doors the whole way down.

And when he stepped out, the cavernous lobby of the federal courthouse was almost silent. But as soon as EPA walked outside, he faced a sea of camera crews and reporters surrounding him, pushing in on him, yelling questions at him. If there's a moment I can point to where everything seems to shift for EPA, it was then. Before this moment, when EPA had been the go-between for Shoheotani in the media, the media

had been respectful, appreciative.

“But now there was a kind of anger in the air, reporters swarmed him, shoving microphones and”

cameras in his face. That image has stuck with me, this frenzy of people surrounding EPA all alone, trying to

move forward through the crowd with his gaze never breaking.

All of the consequences of this scandal falling firmly on him. And Shoheotani was nearly 400 miles away, preparing for a game against the giants in San Francisco. Later that night, he would hit a home run and a double in attended to victory. I'm ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson from 30 for 30 podcasts. This is the betrayal of Shoheotani.

Episode 6, Footnote. A couple of weeks before EPA was due to be sentenced to prison, he submitted a letter to the judge. In the letter, EPA describes his relationship with Shoheotani in the hope the judge might grant him a letter sentence. Honorable Judge John Holcomb, I'm writing you today before my sentencing hearing.

A voice actor is reading EPA's words. Sadly, I'm asking for your leniency in sentencing me and plea that your sentence be merciful and not punitive. I need to tell you what motivated me to act against the law. Since late 2017, I had been working with Shoheotani as his interpreter/manager.

I can confidently say that I put my heart and soul into my work, so Shoheotani can have the best career he can as a professional baseball player in the United States. Typically an interpreter for a major league baseball player communicates with coaches, teammates, and the media, while helping the player navigate a new culture. But EPA wrote he was responsible for much more.

I would also be running daily errands such as grocery shopping, checking his mailbox, fixing his bicycle, accompanying him when he went back to Ewate to visit his family. Take his dog to the vet, take his dog to the groomer, drop off and pick up for his dinners he had with his peers while I wait in the car, help coordinate Japanese and U.S. lawyers for his marriage, pre-nup, and attended the meetings, etc.

EPA told the judge that when a Japanese player comes to play baseball in the United States,

I was responsible for communicating with all of his endorsement companies and brokerage

“companies to set up his production days for commercials which occurred once per week”

in between the training. I would accompany him to all of his production shoots which gave me almost no true days off. The off season was where it was much harder both physically and mentally. He said that during the off season, Shoheotani would train five to six times a week, and

part of EPA's job would be to set up and clean practice equipment, track and film Shoheotani's routine, and be his training partner. He was also the go-between for Shoheotani and his personal pitching, hitting, and rehabilitation support staff. EPA's salary when he started with the Los Angeles Angels was about $85,000.

I felt like I was getting severely underpaid, but I was afraid to speak up for myself as

I was on a one-year contract every year, and I didn't want to upset them and end up getting fired.

“But the team didn't pay him in the off season, so EPA said in his letter that Shoheotani”

would pay him out of pocket during that time, just a little over $500 a week for around the clock help. I had to live within a certain vicinity of Shoheotani so I can stay close by to accommodate his daily needs, especially in his early years in the United States. This meant that I had to rent a place near him, which meant the rent was not going to

be cheap. On top of the hefty rent price, I needed to take care of my wife's expenses for her flights going back and forth from Japan and the United States. EPA's wife wrote the judge a letter as well. She talked about EPA helping her through serious health problems and the death of her parents,

while he financially supported her from abroad. And when she visited the U.S., EPA told the judge she would also help Shoheotani. She would cook in breakfast in the early years and periodically make him food for dinner,

“watch Shoheotani's dog while he was gone for baseball.”

Even paid out of her pocket and learned to do nail production work known as gel nail, since Shoheotani often suffered from broken nails while he was pitching. In another letter to the judge, EPA's mother revealed that she had been in a serious car accident, and EPA had taken responsibility for her care. That accident happened around the same time EPA started betting with the bookie, "Mab Boyer."

EPA told the judge that as his debt grew, he felt like there was no way out, except to tap into Shoheotani's bank account. I felt terribly guilty about putting my hands on his money, but this was the only solution I could think of at the time. The letters to the judge portray a man weighed down by both professional and personal responsibilities,

who is struggling to stay afloat financially when his fixation of sports betting spiraled out of control. Reading the letters, "I wonder what was the relationship between the two men really like?" I'm prepared to accept my consequences. I'm asking for a little mercy from the court concerning my sentence you will hand down. Thank you very much.

Lastly, I truly admire Shoheotani as a baseball player and a human being, and I was committed to develop my life so Shoheotani can be the best version of himself on the field. I want to say I'm truly sorry for violating his trust in me. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my letter. Sincerely, EPA, Mizuhara.

EPA's sentencing hearing took place on February 6th, 2025, about one year after the scandal became international news. Getting behind me in the Pat court room was Chris Seymour, the IRS special agent who had led the government's investigation of EPA. Seymour told me that when he ready pays letter to the judge, he didn't see a man struggling

with responsibility. It's like he was trying to put his case that I'm entitled to this. Maybe he wanted to get that out there that it wasn't as fun being a translator as everybody would think it was. This is okay because I work a lot, but this is okay because I don't have a life because

of this. This is okay. And once you start going down that path, any criminal act is good by your eyes. Seymour says he thought EPA's letter did more harm than good in making his case to the judge, because by sharing details of his day-to-day work, EPA also revealed private information

about Shoheotani's life, like Shoheotani's pre-nup. He was defaulting things that only he knew to the court, he had no right to do in my opinion. Why would you do that? That doesn't make sense. During the sentencing hearing, Jeff Mitchell, the assistant U.S. attorney, picked a part

EPA's letter.

He told the judge that Shoheotani was the one paying for first class international airfare

to be worth more than $100,000.

“And the feds discovered something else too.”

EPA told me that he had never won while betting with Matt's book.

But the feds say that's not true. EPA did win, and when he cashed out, the money went into his personal account. When eBay won money from Boyer, Boyer put the money in eBay's account, not in Shoheotani's account, there was never any transfers from eBay's account to Shoheotani. It never went that way.

It was always eBay taking money from Shoheotani. Mitchell portrayed EPA as an opportunist who took advantage of Shoheotani's trust and generosity. He reminded the judge that EPA impersonated Shoheotani on bank calls, spent $325,000 of Shoheotani's money on baseball cards, and wired millions of dollars from Shoheotani's bank account to an illegal bookmaker to pay off his debts.

And then, Mitchell revealed something new. Something that the prosecution argued should leave no question about EPA's motivation for stealing from Shoheotani.

“The dental work What does the dental work say to you?”

I was surprised, you know, I mean, the dental work was just so blatant and so overreaches. Mitchell says Shoheotani told federal investigators that he had agreed to pay for dental work for EPA in September 2023. So Shoheotani paid a check to cover it for $60,000. The bank record showed EPA didn't use that check to pay for the dental work.

Instead, he deposited it into his own bank account and used money from Shoheotani's private account without Shoheotani's knowledge to actually pay his dental bill. When Shoheotani out of the kindness of his heart writes a check for $60,000 for dental work, then you deposit that money on your account and you still use Shoheotani's debit card to pay for it.

That was just, you know, I was really surprised when I saw that. This is one of the moments that inkcontrovertibly shows that EPA stole from Shoheotani, that EPA was capable of lying to Shoheotani.

$120,000 is not $16 million, but it's the kind of behavior along with EPA's tax that made

the feds believe EPA was capable of stealing millions from his boss. And EPA doesn't deny that he did it. In his letter, he asked the judge to consider the power disparity between him and Shoheotani, how hard he had worked for his demanding boss, how little he'd been paid, how much he wanted to do the right thing.

The judge was unconvinced.

“He said EPA's letter was misleading and left out important facts.”

The judge told EPA, "I give it, no credit, and sentenced him to 57 months in prison." Almost five years, and nearly five times the sentence the booky map boyer received from the same judge. The judge ordered EPA to pay more than $18 million in restitution to Shoheotani and the IRS. As some, he noted, was more than most people make in a lifetime, in that EPA, a ten-gambler's

anonymous.

Shoheotani never attended any of EPA's hearings, and his attorneys only participated

in the case one time, to file a motion requesting that EPA's baseball cards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars go to Shoheotani. The judge agreed. Prosecutors tell me that cases like EPA's happen all over the time. Someone gets in over their head gambling and makes the faithful decision to steal from

their employer, their friend, their family, someone who trusted them. My office was doing dozens of these cases on a monthly basis involving older adults, involving different victims, people who had much smaller amounts taken from them. This is Martina Strada, the former U.S. attorney who led the case against EPA. We did a lot of these cases that just didn't get as much attention.

One of the challenges with sports betting is that it's tells our hard to spot. Oftentimes, the people closest to the gambler have no idea it's even happening. Confidence, lawyers, accountants, friends, taking advantage of others. This is happening to people all over the country each and every day.

but because of the volume of bets that he placed, 19,000 bets in two years.

That was shocking, clearly showed that this was completely out of control. EPA was betting at all hours, day and night. He averaged more than two dozen bets each day. And it makes me think about how my colleague, Tim Kuhin, describes show hey in EPA in the Angel's Clubhouse.

They would sit at the table in the player's lounge and cold each other's phones up to each other in laugh. They were together nearly all of the time, and EPA was betting almost all of the time. All while apparently keeping the biggest secret of his life.

“How could he hide such a big part of his life from the one guy that he was with constantly?”

And how did he ever expect to get away with it? I think about his interview with me. Why talk to me? Who let him get on the phone with me? And why lie about what show hey knew?

We have federal investigations to back up the fact that there's no reason to suspect show hey, but there's just all this weirdness that preceded that that makes you wonder how did this all break down? Mysteries unravel and stunning truths are revealed when 2020 investigates. Follow the clues, the evidence, the breaking new details.

If you follow true crime in 2020, then you've got to listen to this. Subscribe now to 2020 True Crime Plus. Add free exclusive True Crime content.

“Search 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts and start your free trial.”

Terms apply.

When I reached out to show his team about the story, they first said show hey learned

about e-pays betting when he pay asked him for help and paid e-pays gambling debts is a way to help someone important to him. His spokesperson told me that the interview with e-pays would help clear up any questions I had. Going into that interview, I had anticipated that a smart PR guy could spend this into

a story that made show hey look really good. It would be a bit of a scandal, yes, e-pay would most likely get fired, but MLB's most valuable player would come out of it looking like a standup guy who bailed out his friend. And in the beginning, I did get a version of that story. Why did you use his bank account instead of like him sending you the money, why use his account

to pay?

“That's what he did, I don't think he trusted me with the money.”

Oh, yeah, he didn't want me to gamble it away. But he paid a story began to evolve when I pushed for details about how the payments were made. So you turn around and say to show hey, here's the wire transfer information, see you show it to him on your phone, do you text it to him, do you do it for him, like how does that go?

Um, I did it on his behalf. Okay. Great position. So do you have access to his bank account? No, I don't.

Okay, so when you say you did it on his behalf, excuse me how that works. I was with him on this laptop or a computer and he could log in online banking and send the wire in.

In that first interview, he said, show hey, didn't just know about the payments.

He took part in them. He said he and show hey, didn't know that what they were doing might be illegal. He told me all of this was show his crisis spokesperson listening in on the call, but not long after the interview ended. That same spokesperson called me back in a panic, giving me a new version of events.

E.P. had lied, he said, and show hey, knew nothing about any of it. Good morning, Your Honor, Jeff Mitchell and Rachel Agress on behalf of the United States. When Jeff Mitchell stood before the judge during E.P. sentencing, he told the judge that E.P. created an international incident when he lied to me during our interview.

hey may have been involved with the gambling that MLB even opened up its own investigation

“into show hey because of what Mitchell described as E.P.'s false statements.”

He told the judge, no matter how many times the government stands up and tells the world that Mr. Otani is a victim and that there is no evidence that he was ever involved in the gambling people still refuse to believe it. These voices persist. Even though E.P. pleaded guilty, these voices persist in part because of the utter strangeness

of the 24 hours before and after the interview. What I was being told kept changing so quickly and so dramatically, the feds say that when E.P. was talking to me that first time show he didn't know anything about it. And then hours after the interview, after show hey made his Dodgers debut, the team's management and E.P. told the whole team in a locker room meeting that a story was coming

out about E.P.'s gambling addiction. But because E.P. was talking during the meeting, no

“one translated for show hey and the feds say that it was only then.”

Only when show hey asked E.P. about what he had said that show hey learned what was going on for the first time. Think about that. They did the interview, he and show hey laughed together in the dugout, the Dodgers won their game and the Dodgers told the whole team all before show hey learned that an ESPN investigative

reporter was working on the story and when he did find out it was E.P. who broke the news. E.P. controlled the communication in every direction. The court records even show that Nez Balello, show his agent, told the feds he did not speak directly to show hey or regularly text with him. Instead, when Nez needed to talk to show hey, he went through E.P.

Agencies are supposed to protect their clients and this was the biggest client in the game.

“Why did E.P. have such unfettered access to the superstar in his money?”

I have seen and talked to people who don't understand how the agents allowed this to happen. Tim says there have been a lot of tough questions directed at show hey sports agency. There are people that have told me they don't understand why Otani is still working with CAA. Like why wouldn't he divorce himself of that because they had a hand in making him vulnerable

and allowing this to take place.

16 million dollars of your money has been sent to a bookmaking operation which would violate

MLB policy at bare minimum, which would mean you're now going to be under MLB investigation. That's a big allegation. Right. Yeah, and I think that there was this breakdown between the guys who are supposed to handle the money and the guy who has the money.

I've requested an interview with ShowHase Agent Nesbelello. He declined. I've requested interviews with the Dodgers, the Angels, MLB. They all declined too. David Fletcher, the infielder who was at the poker game where E.P. met Matt Boyer, has not responded

to my calls since the story broke.

He told me in an earlier conversation that he knew Boyer, but he had never met with him.

In May 2024, MLB also opened an investigation into him after we revealed he was one of Matt Boyer's clients. Fletcher was sent down to the miners that season. I've written E.P. letters in prison. He hasn't replied.

I continue to ask for an interview with ShowHase. I've told his people it's a standing offer. But during E.P.'s trial, when I called for comment, show his crisis spokesperson told me that ShowHase will never speak about what happened with E.P. ever again. There's no benefit to him addressing it at this point.

If I'm putting myself in ShowHase shoes, given what has happened since this went down, why would I need to talk about E.P.? And as soon as E.P. was charged, ShowHase went on a record-breaking winning streak. 2024 really seemed like he was a guy on a mission, like he attacked the season. So it feels like, as good as he has been, this was a different gear.

This was something literally we'd never seen before.

He's proven to be in habitable.

“50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season that had never been done before.”

And just about six months after his public split with E.P. showHase and the Dodgers capped off the season by winning the World Series. And then what did they do the next season? Well, they do it again. In the career of ShowHase, E.P. is just a dot on a timeline now.

He's just a person from his past. He pays in prison. ShowHase can add to that erasure by ignoring him. E.P. is serving time at a minimum security federal prison in Central Pennsylvania. He will become eligible for parole in 2029. Mitch Liveley, one of the players E.P. interpreted foreign Japan, told Tim he's been thinking

about E.P. now. Do you wish you could call E.P. right now? Come straight up, yeah, but I wouldn't ask him that, because I'm sure that's heavy on his heart.

“I would just ask him how he's doing, honestly.”

How you doing, man? That's what I don't want to ask him. He need me, he helped me, and I need you, what can I do for you? E.P. is punishment doesn't end when he gets out of prison. He faces another three years of probation, and because he is a Japanese citizen convicted

of a felony, he will most likely be deported. He's going to be a pariah in Japan, or not just because of what he did because of who he did it to. Jason Coskrey is an American baseball writer based in Tokyo. It's one thing to be famous for a crime of this magnitude, but it's another thing to be

famous for a crime of this magnitude where you're robbing the most famous person in the country, and then one of the most beloved people in the country. Jason says the backlash against E.P. in Japan has been almost universal. In Japan, a lot of times, if the scandal is bad enough, you sort of just get erased in a way.

When Tim went to Japan to report on show hey, he found it difficult to get anyone to talk about E.P. I've run into it, too. I've reached out to dozens of people in my effort to better understand E.P. and there's an intensity to their refusals that's hard to explain.

Japanese broadcasters won't even let us use their sound of show hey playing baseball in Japan because they don't want to be included in a podcast about E.P. It's almost as if people want to erase E.P. from show hey's legacy all together. He was part of a book. There were some pages in some children's book that he was in.

This is E.P. in Mizuhara. There's a Japanese children's book about show hey, called Let's Play Baseball, the show Heyotani story.

The first edition includes an illustration of E.P. standing next to show hey at what looks

like a Dodgers press conference. But in later versions that have come out since the scandal. Think they took pit out. E.P. is bit erased. Show hey, now just stands next to a blank wall.

It's happening in the U.S. in small ways as well. A place high school in Diamond Bar had a profile of him posted on its famous alumni page. It's since been scrubbed from their website. And when you look at show his Instagram, there are no longer any photos with E.P. Almost from the moment they arrived in the U.S. from Japan, show hey and E.P. were presented

to the world as friends. E.P. even told me that they were as close as brothers. But looking back what little we know about their relationship actually comes from E.P.

In one of the few times show hey did come in on their relationship back in 2024, it at first

sounds like show hey speaking through E.P. is making a joke. But now after everything we've learned, this moment hits differently. Now the U.S. developed a relationship with E.P. We're not friends or anything, we're just business partners.

“When I think back on it, E.P. had an extraordinary power as show hey's interpreter.”

There's an intimacy to interpretation. E.P. not only decided what words most appropriately captured show his ideas, but the subtext

For six years, everything the English speaking world heard and therefore believed about show hey came from E.P. E.P. constructed show hey for us. Now reading E.P.'s letter about the realities of his life working for show hey and seeing

“E.P. erased by show hey success, I wonder, was this ever even a friendship?”

On November 3rd, 2025, the Dodgers were back in their home stadium in front of tens of thousands

of fans, celebrating a second consecutive World Series win.

A year after his first World Series speech, show hey takes the mic again without an interpreter. I want to say that I'm so proud of this listing and then I want to say you guys are the greatest of fans in the world and I'm ready to get another ring next year. If he would have not succeeded with the Dodgers, this betting scandal would have consumed his entire career.

This is my ESPN colleague, Alden Gonzalez. Now the more he performs on the field, the more this feels like it's becoming a footnote in his career.

E.P. has faded and this is faded further and further into the background because of

what show hey Otani has done on the field. Show hey Otani is 32 years old and only 3 years into his 10-year contract with the Dodgers.

“And I think with every home run he hits and every shutout he throws, every MVP he gets,”

this moves further and further down that story. The day that show Yotani announces his retirement from Major League Baseball, how many graphs into that story is the E.P. betting scandal going to be? If things go well for E.P. he'll be leaving prison sometime in the spring of 2029. And if things go well for show hey, he'll be starting another record-breaking season with

the Dodgers. Ultimately, only they know what really happened between them in their friendship and if they were ever even friends to begin with. I've talked to one of them and we know he lied to me while I've been told the other won't go on the record about it again.

“And as long as people keep betting on show hey success and show hey keeps winning, he'll”

never have to say E.P.'s name ever again.

The betrayal of show hey Yotani is based on reporting by me, Tisha Thompson, with support from Tim Kuhin and the ESPN investigative unit. Our producer is Carrie Ann Thomas, our senior producer is Max Green, our senior editorial producer is Prethi Varathon, our associate producer is Gus Navarro, with Isabella Ciman, story editing by Audrey Quinn, Elaine Tang, Eric Neal, and Mike Drago.

Additional editing by Rebecca Hudson, our archival producer is Jennifer Weelock, our line producer is Katherine Sanky, production managers are Jason Schwartz and Sheenow Williams, fact checking by John Masterbaradino with David Sabino, additional editorial review from Masa Niwa, voiceover by Genta Nakahara, vocal coaching by Noah Koslov, original music by Allison Layton Brown and John DeLore, sound design by John DeLore, production assistants

are Diamonti McCallvey, Avia Owensby, and Declan McMahon. Wright's inclerances by Jennifer Thorpe and Cal Griffith, legal by Nathan Seagull, Peter Cher, Liana and Vinder, Kelly Riott, and Tamara Lori. Eric Neal is senior director of content development. Mike Drago is senior deputy editor of investigative journalism.

Chris Buckle is vice president of ESPN investigative enterprise and digital journalism. For a 30-for-30 podcast, Prithi Barathon is head of audio. Ben Weber is senior producer and director for 30-for-30. Marcia Cook, Brian Lockhart, Heather Anderson, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30-for-30.

David Roberts, Mike Boss, and Roxanna Scott are executive producers for ESPN. This podcast was developed by Tara Nidalney, Phil Gidry, and Cynthia Parabelow. To listen to more sports series like this one, search 30-for-30 podcasts wherever you

Thanks for listening.