SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California bookmaker who took thousands of sports bets from the former interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani was sentenced Friday to just over a year in prison.
Mathew Bowyer, 50, pleaded guilty last year to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, which his lawyer said he has already paid.
“The bottom line is, I am remorseful. I have made many poor choices in my life,” Bowyer told the court, his voice trembling.
The case against Bowyer drew international attention because he counted among his clients Ohtani’s former Japanese language interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. Mizuhara was sentenced earlier this year to five years in prison for bank and tax fraud after stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player.
Federal prosecutors wanted Bowyer to face 15 months in prison for running a scheme for at least five years that placed hundreds of millions of dollars in bets and netted thousands of dollars a day. Bowyer, who has said he has a gambling addiction, asked to be spared prison time due to his extensive cooperation with federal investigations into illegal sports betting and more recent outreach efforts to help other addicts.
U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb said he was impressed by Bowyer’s efforts and the overwhelming support shown by Bowyer’s family and friends, more than a dozen who were in the courtroom Friday, but said he felt some prison time was necessary due to the tax fraud.
“Despite the significant mitigation, there are consequences for committing these crimes,” Holcomb said.
During a hearing in federal court in Santa Ana, California, prosecutor Kristen Williams said the IRS was not the only victim in the case but also Bowyer's clients, many gambling addicts themselves.
“There is a need to make sure that what the public understands about this is not simply that Mr. Bowyer had an addiction problem,” Williams told the court. “He was living an extravagant lifestyle.”
The sentence is still far less than the three years recommended by probation officials, said Diane Bass, Bowyer's attorney. Bass said that's because her client cooperated with investigators, paid restitution before it was ordered, publicly acknowledged his crimes and has helped others grappling with addiction.
“He has shown extraordinary acceptance of responsibility,” Bass told the court.
Bowyer, a father of five from San Juan Capistrano, California, said he began gambling as a teen by playing poker and betting on video games, and it later spiraled out of control.
He eventually was running an illegal gambling business in Southern California and Las Vegas that took wagers from more than 700 bettors including Mizuhara, authorities said. While Mizuhara’s winnings totaled over $142 million, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s, his losing bets were around $183 million — a net loss of nearly $41 million.
Bowyer cooperated with investigators in their prosecution of Mizuhara and the head of a large sports gambling business, according to prosecutors.
Authorities have repeatedly said Ohtani was a victim in the case. On Friday, Bowyer said he was sorry Ohtani's name got dragged into the case and that he spoke with prosecutors and baseball officials to clear it.
“At the end of the day, he's just an innocent guy playing baseball,” Bowyer told reporters.
Bowyer is expected to report for his sentence Oct. 10. He will later be subjected to two years of supervised release.
Operating an unlicensed betting business is a federal crime. Sports gambling is illegal in California, while most states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.
Sports-betting scandals have made headlines in recent years, including one that led Major League Baseball to ban a player for life last year because of gambling for the first time since Pete Rose was barred in 1989.
The league’s gambling policy prohibits players and team employees from wagering on baseball, even legally. MLB also bans betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.
The league last year banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano and suspended four other players for betting on baseball legally. Rose, whose playing days were already over, agreed to his ban after an investigation found he had placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing for and managing the team.
In Nevada, the case against Bowyer led gaming regulators to issue a $10.5 million fine against the Resorts World Casino on the Las Vegas strip. It was the second-largest fine handed down by the state’s gaming commission and settled a complaint accusing the casino of welcoming people with ties to illegal bookmaking.
Amy Taxin, The Associated Press
