The illegal bookmaker at the center of the sports betting scandal centering on Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, will plead guilty next week to gambling and money laundering charges, according to court records unsealed by federal prosecutors on Thursday.
Prosecutors charged Mathew Bowyer, 49, with operating an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return on June 21, according to a plea agreement and charging documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
“Mr. Bowyer is willing to accept responsibility for his actions,” Bowyer's attorney, Diane Bass, said in a statement to ESPN on Thursday.
Bowyer is set to plead guilty on Aug. 9, according to a news release from prosecutors. A spokesman declined to comment further.
Until now, Bowyer's legal proceedings have been sealed as prosecutors continue their wide-ranging federal investigation into Southern California gambling houses and their connections to Las Vegas casinos.
The records released Thursday confirm for the first time that Bowyer has been the subject of a federal investigation. ESPN was first to report that Bowyer was under investigation in March.
As part of his plea agreement, Bowyer admitted to receiving more than $4 million in unreported income in 2022 and falsely stating that his taxable income was $607,897. Bowyer knew his income was “substantially in excess of that amount” because he ran a sportsbook that “involved at least five individuals” and had “gross revenues of more than $2,000 in a single day.” Prosecutors said Bowyer also violated California state law banning sports betting.
Because there are more than five people involved, Bowyer could face a harsher punishment. He faces a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison, but by pleading guilty, he will most likely receive a lesser sentence.
According to court documents, Judge John W. Holcomb will make the final decision. Holcomb is the same judge who is scheduled to sentence Mizuhara on Oct. 25.
Mizuhara placed at least 19,000 bets in Bowyer's illegal gambling business, prosecutors say.
According to the documents, Mizuhara was one of at least 700 gamblers who used Bowyer’s sportsbook, which operated in California and Nevada. Prosecutors had previously reported the number was more than 600. Bowyer’s operation used a Costa Rica-based call center and websites to create accounts for customers, according to the plea documents.
Bowyer operated the business from branches in Los Angeles and Orange counties and in Las Vegas, and employed agents and subagents “who were paid a portion of the losses suffered and repaid by gamblers.”
According to the filing, Bowyer directed Mizuhara to make payments of at least $1.25 million to one bank account and another $15 million to a different bank account operated by one of Bowyer's associates.
Bowyer “wired or directed the wire transfer” of at least $9.3 million to “Casino A,” identified by multiple sources to ESPN as Resorts World Las Vegas, where he lost at least $4 million, while reality TV star Ryan Boyajian lost at least $1.6 million gambling at the casino.
In May, ESPN detailed how payments from Ohtani's bank account were sent to another bank account owned by Boyajian, described as “Associate 1” in the federal government's criminal complaint against Mizuhara. According to multiple sources, Boyajian sent Ohtani's money to his casino account at Resorts World, where he and Bowyer would withdraw chips to gamble. If they won, they would cash out.
Boyajian's criminal defense attorney, Steven Katzman, said his client is “not a bookie or a sub-bookie.” Multiple sources told ESPN in May that Boyajian received immunity for his cooperation in the investigation.
A spokesperson for Resorts World did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The resort previously told ESPN it was cooperating with the investigation.
Multiple sources told ESPN that while federal agents had been investigating Bowyer since at least October, it wasn't until ESPN began asking questions about wire transfers from Ohtani's bank account that Bowyer's involvement with Mizuhara came under scrutiny.
Shortly after ESPN published its findings in March — including two conflicting interviews with Mizuhara detailing how some of the bets were made and later returned — federal agents charged Mizuhara with bank fraud. Mizuhara pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani’s bank account on June 4.
Federal agents intercepted Mizuhara at LAX airport and seized his phone, which revealed a series of text messages with Bowyer's organization.
In addition to Mizuhara, whom Bowyer refers to as “IM” in the plea agreement, the filing also names two other gamblers in Bowyer’s organization: “Individual B,” a professional baseball player for a Southern California baseball club, and “Individual C,” a former minor league baseball player. Individual B bet on basketball, football and hockey, according to the filing, while Individual C bet on a variety of sports, including baseball games in which Individual B participated.
