Quote:
Originally Posted by 72off
1. **** ohtani's reputation, it'd obv be to protect ohtani's abilty to earn ~$1b/year playing baseball
You completely downplayed their relationship - if he's a random interpreter, not an extremely trusted member of his inner circle and a close friend, why on earth Ippei do this to protect Ohtani? Why even be the go-between in the first place for illegal gambling?
Also let's consider the stakes here.
1) If Ohtani is found to have gambled illegally (but not on baseball), the consequences are a fine for Ohtani and essentially none for Ippei.
2) If Ohtani is found to have just paid Ippei's debt, there effectively are no consequences for Ohtani and essentially none for Ippei.
3) If the current story - that Ippei defrauded Ohtani of millions of dollars to gamble illegally - is true, there effectively are no consequences for Ohtani and Ippei is looking at federal prison.
Why choose the third option which is unnecessarily cruel for the fall guy, which significantly increases the risk of him coming clean and blowing everything up, over the second option which had already been partially publicized, if Ohtani and Ippei are working together to cover this up? That makes no sense. Especially when Ippei already went public with option 2. Going from option 2 to option 3 makes no sense if Ohtani and Ippei were working together the whole time.
In other words, Ohtani has very little to gain by changing the story from option 2 to 3, whereas Ippei has everything to gain by changing the story from option 3 to 2. Why, then, isn't option 3 more likely?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 72off
2. why would he go to federal prison, for gambling? ohtani has apparently already forgiven him for the embezzlement. you already said both these things itt
Are you following anything at all? Ohtani (through his people obv) is alleging that Ippei stole millions of dollars and is asking the authorities to investigate this. I already gave a possible theory as to how both could be true - Ohtani could have lent the money under false pretense or could've forgiven the initial embezzlement after being told a lie as to the purpose of embezzlement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 72off
again, the point is: if eppei doing it through ohtani is essentially the same thing, then why would he do it?
You're alleging a conspiracy where they set this up. It makes no sense that they would have tihs elaborate scheme to protect Ohtani and be completely dumb about it. Again, you seem completely unaware of the facts - Bowyer's lawyer already stated that they had no contact with Ohtani, but affirmed the connection between Ippei and Bowyer, so we already know that Ippei was the guy. So your conspiracy theory implies an elaborate scheme where Ippei bet on Ohtani's behalf while completely shielding Ohtani from the bookie.
Ippei sending money from his account makes sense since sending money from Ohtani's account was something that happened unexpectedly as he ran up the debt and at that point, he had no other option. Where else can he get that kind of money? And at that point as a degenerate gambler in huge amounts of debt to shady figures, why does he worry about protecting Ohtani? These aren't equivalent scenarios.
Ohtani sending money from his account makes no sense since for this conspiracy to be true, it means he used Ippei to hide his identity (btw, another reason why this whole thing makes no sense, if Ohtani wanted to hide the fact that he's gambling illegally by using a go-between, why on earth would he do that through a person who is extremely notable as Ohtani's friend). Why then go through all the trouble to hide his connection to gambling to the extent that Bowyer literally had never any contact with him, but casually wire the money from his account?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 72off
well you're the one who seems to think that social media lackey is some prestigious position
It represents a level of access and trust for Ippei that someone who has absolutely no professional experience doing this would be entrusted with this for just being related to Ippei. And that Ippei is willing to use the trust Ohtani has in him to place his people around Ohtani. Which gives him all sorts of ways to abuse that trust and also explains why Ohtani's "spokesperson" (we still don't know who that is) affirmed Ippei's version Ohtani being aware of what's going on.