(HOUSTON) — A Texas mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her two young children home alone for days to go on a cruise, court records show.
Lakesha Williams, 29, of Houston, has been charged with abandoning a child with intent to return, a felony, according to a criminal complaint.
Neighbors at her high-rise apartment building reportedly saw Williams leave with luggage on April 4 but “never saw her return,” according to the complaint.
A woman at the apartment complex reached out to law enforcement to request a wellness check because the neighbors were worried about the children’s safety, according to the complaint.
Deputies conducted a welfare check on Tuesday, five days after Williams allegedly left, and found an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl alone in the apartment, the complaint stated. The apartment was in “complete disarray,” with trash and food strewn about and a “very potent smell of urine,” the complaint stated.
The children reportedly told police that their mother left them on April 4 “to go on vacation on a cruise and they did not know when she would return,” the complaint stated.
It did not appear that any adults had been supervising the children since then, according to the complaint. Williams allegedly used a video camera to watch and talk to the children during that time, and the boy had a phone he was using to text her, according to the complaint.
“These children were definitely left unattended for many days and put in serious harm’s way,” Keegan Childers, the chief prosecutor of the 209th District Court, told Houston ABC station KTRK.
A Child Protective Services agent responded to the scene to ensure the children were in good health and they were released into the custody of their aunt, according to the complaint.
Deputies tried contacting Williams to have her respond to the scene “but she was not cooperating and was switching up her story on her whereabouts,” the complaint stated.
Williams was arrested on Thursday and is scheduled to appear in court on Monday, online court records show. The records do not list any attorney information for her.
ABC News was unable to reach the aunt for comment. She declined to comment to KTRK.
(MORGANTOWN, W.Va.) — When 16-year-old Skylar Neese went missing from her West Virginia home after midnight on July 6, 2012, two of her best friends took to social media to express their fears and hopes that Skylar could be alive.
But months later, investigators would find out that Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy were hiding a sinister, deadly plot behind their posts and were ultimately responsible for Neese’s death.
“We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her,'” State Police Cpl. Ronnie Gaskins told “20/20.”
An all-new “20/20” episode airing Friday, April 12, at 9 p.m. and streaming on Hulu the next day explores the case with fresh insight from investigators, a group of journalists who profiled the murder in a new podcast “Three,” and others.
The three high school sophomores, who lived near Morgantown, West Virginia, used to be inseparable, according to Neese’s parents.
Neese and the two other girls had their ups and downs; around the time of Neese’s disappearance, the three had been feuding, according to investigators.
In the days leading up to her death, Neese’s Twitter account showed that something had gone awry.
On July 4, 2012, two days before she was murdered, Neese tweeted, “It really doesn’t take much to p— me off,” and, “Sick of being at f—— home. Thanks ‘friends,’ love hanging out with you all too.”
The day before she was killed, Neese tweeted, “you doing s— like that is why I can NEVER completely trust you.”
After Neese went missing, Eddy told Neese’s mother that she, Neese and Shoaf had been driving around town that night getting high before Neese went missing. Eddy claimed she and Shoaf had dropped Neese off at the end of the road from her apartment building so that Neese could sneak back in.
The two girls told investigators they picked up Neese at 11 p.m. the night she went missing.
Eddy posted regularly on Twitter about her thoughts and day-to-day activities as authorities searched for her “missing” friend. Eddy also posted about her friendship with Shoaf.
But as the investigation into Neese’s disappearance continued, with the FBI ultimately getting involved, suspicion mounted that the girls were harboring a secret.
Upon a review of surveillance video that showed Neese being picked up by a car at 12:30 a.m. the night of her disappearance, law enforcement realized that the victim’s two friends lied in their original statements to police.
Video footage from a nearby convenience store as well as cell phone records confirmed holes in the two friends’ story. Investigators said they knew they had lied, but had no idea what they were hiding or why.
Suspicions mounted and the community was divided in their support of Shoaf and Eddy’s claims.
A few months after Neese’s disappearance, Shoaf suffered a nervous breakdown following weeks of probing by investigators. On Jan. 3, 2013, she confessed to investigators that she and Eddy had stabbed Neese to death.
Judge Perri Jo DeChristopher, who helped investigate the case when she was an assistant prosecutor, told “20/20” that her office was skeptical about Shoaf’s confession.
“If one co-conspirator gives a statement against another co-conspirator, you really have to use it as a starting point to corroborate the facts,” she said.
However, Shoaf gave information that led authorities to Neese’s remains, which were found in a wooded area over the Pennsylvania state line, about 20 miles from Star City, West Virginia.
During her January 2013 confession, Shoaf had told authorities how she says she and Eddy had planned Neese’s murder.
The plan was to pick up Neese from her house at night and drive to a remote area to smoke marijuana. Once they were in the woods, Shoaf said the plan was to count to three, then stab Neese to death. Authorities say that Neese was found with over 50 stab wounds.
Attempts were made by investigators to get Eddy to incriminate herself, including having Shoaf wear a wire, but they were unsuccessful.
Eventually, investigators conducted a search warrant of Eddy’s house and confiscated her computer, phone, and tablet, knives from the kitchen and a car from the residence — a Toyota Camry.
An FBI analysis of the car found Neese’s blood DNA in the trunk of the vehicle. On May 1, 2013, Eddy was arrested in a restaurant parking lot. Both teens were charged with murder as adults.
Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for her role in the killing.
On Jan. 24, 2014, roughly 18 months after Neese’s death, she was sentenced to life in prison.
Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, a lesser charge based on her cooperation with authorities, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison the following month.
Only Shoaf apologized to Neese’s parents during her plea deal.
“[Eddy]’s not sorry,” David Neese told “20/20” in a previous interview. “You don’t apologize for murdering somebody in cold blood because she meant to do it.”
Shoaf was denied parole last year.
Neese’s family, friends and others from the town said they are still numb from the wound left by her murder.
“Nobody wins. Skyler isn’t around, the two girls are in jail, the two girls’ parents are living through this, and Morgantown still is ripped apart because of this situation,” Tom Bloom, a former guidance counselor at the girls’ high school, told “20/20.”
(NEW YORK) — Heavy rain, thunderstorms and gusty winds are moving through the Northeast on Friday as a major storm system lifts into Canada.
The storm system previously brought 11 confirmed tornadoes across six states — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and North Carolina. The worst of the rain is over for the Interstate 95 corridor with just showers on and off into the afternoon.
Behind this storm, a wind advisory has been issued from Maine to Georgia, with gusts near 50 mph for some areas Friday. There are flood and wind alerts for the eastern U.S. from the Great Lakes to the Carolinas and up to Maine.
Gusty winds are expected Friday afternoon and some higher elevations in New England could see gusts up to 55 mph. Gusty winds will last into Saturday. An EF-1 tornado with winds up to 100 mph caused damage Thursday near St. Augustine, Florida.
In addition to tornadoes, there have been 77 damaging storm reports from Florida to West Virginia in the last 24 hours. Wind gusts were reported to be 58 to 68 mph in North Carolina and Virginia.
A flash flood emergency was issued Thursday evening just west of Pittsburgh, where nearly 4 inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. Numerous water rescues were reported in Pittsburgh metro area Thursday night.
Officially, Pittsburgh, is having the wettest start to any month on record. In the last 11 days, the city has seen more than 7 inches of rain.
In Charleston, South Carolina, dozens of roads closed downtown due to flooding on Thursday. The city had record daily rainfall of 3.23 inches.
(BALTIMORE) — The bridge collapse has rerouted $80 million in maritime cargo and trucking and the document said any disruptions at other ports “could have an outsized impact on the flow of goods that is not easily mitigated.”
Baltimore’s Key Bridge, a vital transit and shipping route, collapsed last month after being hit by a cargo ship. Following the disaster, which killed six construction workers, the Port of Baltimore suspended operations, resulting in thousands of job losses.
“Additional supply chain disruptions will be more difficult to overcome since the standard procedure of partially rerouting ad hoc cargo through the Port of Baltimore is no longer feasible,” the document said.
So far, the rerouting of cargo has not significantly impacted the ability of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to detect and interdict potentially illicit or high-risk materials, the document said. Any enforcement actions initiated prior to the bridge collapse will be handled at U.S. ports of entry that receive the redirected shipments.
If there are logistical setbacks as a result of the bridge collapse, the intelligence analysts warned U.S. adversaries could exploit them.
“We have not seen indications that adversaries are actively exploiting the incident or related disruptions, but foreign adversaries have used an opportunistic approach to advancing a broad range of security, economic, and other strategic interests following similar US disasters,” the report said.
The Port of Baltimore ranks as the ninth largest port in the United States by trading volume. Last year, the port managed to handle 52.3 tons of foreign cargo.
President Joe Biden has pledged to fully support Baltimore’s rebuilding efforts. He said last week its his “intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstruction of that bridge.”
In an aerial view, cargo ship Dali is seen after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Mar. 26, 2024 in Baltimore. — Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
(BALTIMORE) — Baltimore’s Key Bridge, a vital transit and shipping route, collapsed last month after being hit by a cargo ship. The incident has left members of the community fearing for their future.
Following the deadly bridge collapse, the Port of Baltimore suspended operations, resulting in 8,000 job losses. Many dockworkers have not been paid for weeks and are waiting for cargo ships to resume operations so they can start working again.
Some are still working at nearby smaller ports or on the little cargo that remains in Baltimore from before the bridge collapsed. But that’s nothing in comparison to the flurry of activity this port once was.
The urgency of the situation is reflected in crews working tirelessly to remove the debris and restore Baltimore’s port. However, this is a perilous task that demands immense effort. Commander Bill McKinstry from the U.S. Coast Guard informed ABC News that the divers are grappling with poor visibility due to the water conditions, with only about a foot of visibility.
The enormity of the task ahead for the U.S. Coast Guard and other teams is evident when you consider that the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was once a crucial transportation link, now lies in the Baltimore Harbor as a massive block of steel and concrete. As a result, most of the harbor is inaccessible to the outside world.
The Army Corps of Engineers is setting an ambitious goal of clearing a channel for smaller cargo ships by late April and reopening the entire port by the end of May.
The port’s absence has plunged the dockworkers, who have been the backbone of their families for years, into a state of uncertainty. They are grappling with the question of how long they can hold on before seeking alternative employment.
Richard Krueger, president of Local 953, said this situation is a crisis and it’s the fear of the unknown.
“We don’t know how long they are going to be off,” Krueger said. How long is it going to take them to open the channel? How long do they have to get through this because they have to pay the bills? And nobody knows. And the truth is we don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know when the channel is going to be open.”
The crisis affects not only dockworkers but also residents and workers on the waterfront, leaving them uncertain about meeting basic needs such as food, mortgage and rent payments, car payments and tuition fees. Krueger says hundreds of families are affected.
The Port of Baltimore ranks as the ninth largest port in the United States by trading volume. Last year, the port managed to handle 52.3 tons of foreign cargo, which was worth around $80 billion. This feat made it the ninth-busiest port in the country for handling such goods.
U.S. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore stated last month that the port is the top-performing port in the U.S. for handling heavy farm and construction machinery, imported sugar and gypsum.
“The Port of Baltimore is a key component in Maryland’s transportation network,” Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said in a statement last month.
One of the biggest imports at the port are new cars, but no new shipments have been coming in, leaving Nick Olszewski, a port employee, in limbo. Olszewski’s job is to check the batteries in new cars.
He is worried he might lose his job if the channel doesn’t clear soon. Olszewski also forecasts that shipping rates will increase for various items and consumers will suffer.
“Some people work week to week,” Olszewski said. They’re going to really be hurting.”
Olszewski works at the port, but plenty of small businesses surrounding the area will suffer because their loyal customers will not show up anymore. One of the small businesses in the area is Herman’s Bakery in Dundalk, Maryland, a neighborhood in what was once the shadow of the Key Bridge.
Larry Desantis, the head baker, works at the bakery and claims to have been one of the last individuals to cross the Key Bridge before it collapsed.
“It makes me think, you know, I’m really lucky,” Desantis said. “One minute later and I wouldn’t be here.”
The city of Baltimore is in a state of mourning after the loss of a bridge that played a crucial role in the daily lives of its residents. As the reality of having to navigate the city without this vital infrastructure starts to set in, the community is grappling with the challenges that lie ahead.
(SHILOH, Ala.) — An unlikely visitor made his way through rural Alabama last Wednesday to visit the community of Shiloh, a place usually far from the public eye. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and two of his top officials came to Shiloh at the request of local landowners who say they’ve experienced frequent flooding ever since the state widened a highway alongside their homes.
Many of the Black families that make up the Shiloh community have owned their land since the end of slavery. Now, as they watch their properties flood, they tell ABC News they fear the generational wealth they’ve built over 150 years will be destroyed by the water.
Pastor Timothy Williams, whose family has lived in Shiloh for generations, has been speaking out about the flooding and damage to his home since 2017, during the highway construction. But until last week, Williams said he did not feel heard by those in power.
“It feels promising just to be able to reach the top of the DOT and for them to listen,” Williams told ABC News on the eve of the visit. “I believe help is on the way.”
Buttigieg’s visit followed an ABC News investigation last October and a meeting between Shiloh residents and officials in Washington last month. It came amid a civil rights investigation, too – a probe by the Federal Highway Administration into whether the Alabama Department of Transportation discriminated against the predominantly Black Shiloh community.
ALDOT denies any discrimination in the highway widening or its aftermath. The agency maintains that the flooding in Shiloh was not caused by the project and says it has been working with the FHWA “to provide facts about the Highway 84 widening project and the concerns expressed by residents of the Shiloh Community.”
However, the ABC News investigation uncovered electronic diaries that showed ALDOT contractors were aware of the flooding in Shiloh and residents’ complaints as they were expanding the highway.
Last week, the feds got to see the situation on the ground and evaluate it for themselves.
Buttigieg walked on the eroded muddy ground that fills with water when it rains. He saw the cracks in the brick exterior of Williams’ house, which the property’s insurer determined were caused by frequent flooding. He heard from residents who said it took longer for first responders to help them during emergencies because the flooding had prevented firetrucks and ambulances from reaching their homes.
“There’s no way I’m going to forget what I just heard,” Buttigieg said.
‘There’s no more lynchings and hangings. It’s coming after your finances.’
Timothy Williams’ daughter Melissa Williams said she does not feel safe in her family’s home when it rains.
“You’re going to bed, you don’t know if you’re going to wake up the next morning,” she told ABC News.
The water isn’t the only force the Williams family says threatens their life in Shiloh. Since the original ABC News investigation aired in October, Timothy Williams said he’s lost customers at his two businesses, a cleaning service and a restaurant.
“In Alabama, there’s no more lynchings and hangings,” Timothy Williams said, but instead, “they come after your money, your finances, and try to drain it.”
Still, Timothy Williams said, he does not regret speaking up about Shiloh’s plight.
“They want us to shut up,” he said. “When they say shut up, you scream.”
But the state has seemed to listen to some voices more than others, residents said.
When Timothy Williams brought his concerns to ALDOT, he felt the agency tried to silence him: Instead of addressing the flooding, the state signed settlement agreements with Timothy Williams and some of his neighbors, paying them each no more than $5,000 to give up their rights to ever sue for flood damages.
Down the road from Shiloh, a day care center saw unprecedented flooding after the highway widening and had to close. The owners – a white mother-daughter duo – were devastated to lose their family business. In their case, ALDOT bought a portion of their land for $165,000, also preventing them from bringing future claims against the state.
Day care owner Ronda Robinson said she feels for the Shiloh families, “’cause the fight was hard.”
Her mother Peggy Carpenter said the $5,000 some Shiloh residents received was like a drop in the bucket.
“You get tired of fighting,” she added.
Robinson and Carpenter said while they don’t know whether the difference between the deal they got and what was offered to Shiloh homeowners had to do with race, they “don’t put it past” the state.
After years of Shiloh residents advocating for additional help, the nation’s top infrastructure official heard their call.
“He listened to the people,” Timothy Williams said of Buttigieg. “He heard us out and he got involved.”
Buttigieg’s visit came during one of his department’s busiest weeks, following the bridge collapse in Baltimore and disruptions to port operations.
Yet here he was, in a tiny community far from any major population center and unknown to most Americans.
“The experiences of a homeowner here in this Shiloh community matter just as much as anybody else in the wealthiest ZIP code in America,” Buttigieg said. “It is one thing to be on the radar, it is another to actually be seen.”
Journey to Justice Tour
Timothy Williams led the group of officials and residents from house to house, passing a loudspeaker to each Shiloh resident and giving them a chance to share their experiences with the flooding – and this time, to be heard.
Timothy Williams led the crowd across the highway to see the drainage system, which funnels water directly onto Shiloh properties, and to the ditches ALDOT contractors dug to hold the runoff, which frequently overflow into the Williams’ front yard.
On their trek around the neighborhood, the officials saw a water moccasin – one of the snakes and frogs that have become a frequent sight in Shiloh – and a gas pipeline that was moved next to the Williams’ home as part of the highway project.
Together, the community’s experiences formed a narrative of fear, loss and disproportionate burden.
Another prominent member of the tour was Dr. Robert Bullard, an area native and Texas Southern University professor who helped coin the term “environmental justice” and has written 18 books on the topic. He helped bring Shiloh to the national stage after joining forces with Timothy Williams last year. Bullard called the situation “a textbook case” of environmental racism.
“They survived slavery. They survived Jim Crow segregation,” Bullard said of the Shiloh community. “But now they’re fighting a highway, an infrastructure, that is somehow stealing their wealth, their inheritance. That’s not right.”
After the tour, Buttigieg met several Shiloh residents and spoke with them individually. He assured them he would bring their concerns back to Washington.
Addressing the crowd gathered near the Williams’ home, Buttigieg said, “[I] want you to know that not only are you seen, but this is being worked at the highest levels of our department.”
He told the Shiloh residents that none of them are responsible for the flooding and its impacts, and that nobody should have to live with what they are going through right now.
In an exclusive interview following his address, Buttigieg told ABC News Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami that his department has “a significant and substantial concern about the impact of the highway on this community and about what members of this community are going through.” He said that concern is why there is an ongoing investigation and “active engagement with the Alabama DOT.”
The road ahead
Although it received a rare visit from top brass, Shiloh is not the only community that is the focus of a FHWA civil rights investigation. The agency’s Office of Civil Rights aims to complete these investigations in 180 days. But the people of Shiloh have been waiting more than three times that long – nearly 600 days without an answer to their claims of discrimination or a solution to their flooding.
In a statement to ABC News, an ALDOT spokesperson wrote that the agency has partnered with an engineering firm to “develop plans for further controlling stormwater runoff from ALDOT’s right of way.”
But in a statement to ABC affiliate WDHN, ALDOT denied any unfair treatment and asserted the agency’s belief that Shiloh property owners had been “adequately compensated for any inconvenience caused by ALDOT’s Highway 84 project.”
ALDOT’s statement to WDHN presented two options the agency plans to offer Shiloh residents: selling their properties to ALDOT or having the agency implement a project to retain additional water.
“The choice will be theirs,” the statement read.
To Timothy Williams, this isn’t a choice at all: To sell his property would be to end a multigenerational legacy of community and wealth building. And he says ALDOT’s previous attempts to retain the runoff have not solved the flooding.
Instead, Timothy Williams wants money to rebuild his family home with better protection from flooding, including a higher foundation on drier ground. He wants to create a house as resilient as his community.
“We’re here for the long haul,” Timothy Williams said. “Whatever it takes, I’m down for it, but we’re not going nowhere.”
For the Shiloh community, some said this struggle is about much more than compensation for an inconvenience.
“When people are fighting a road and the flooding, they’re not just fighting that elevated highway,” Bullard said. “They’re fighting for their inheritance, for their children and their grandchildren and future generations, so that’s why this is an important fight.”
Buttigieg hopes to turn that fight into federal action.
“I want to make sure we take that back and engage our sister agencies to get results,” he said. “People who live here need to be taken care of.”
The Williams family saw last week’s visit as a step in the right direction.
“It still doesn’t fix what we’re going through,” Melissa Williams said, “but it does make it a tad bit better.”
(ENGLEWOOD, Colo.) — A school bus aide has been arrested by police in Englewood, Colorado, for allegedly physically abusing three children with severe autism, at least one instance of which was allegedly caught on video, according to a law firm representing the families.
The three students endured “extreme physical and mental abuse” over the course of six months while on a Littleton Public Schools special needs bus, the Rathod Mohamedbhai law firm said in a press release Wednesday. All three children are non-verbal, and could therefore not report the abuse, the law firm said.
Kiarra Jones, 29, faces felony assault charges for crimes against at-risk children, according to police.
“It was determined that more than one non-verbal autistic student was assaulted by the suspect on a moving school bus while en route to school,” the Englewood Police Department said in release Tuesday. “It was also determined that the suspect was the victims’ assigned paraprofessional employed by Littleton Public School District at the time of the incident.”
Jones allegedly subjected the children to “unfathomable abuse,” the law firm said.
Starting in September 2023, the parents said they “saw significant shifts in their child’s behavior and noticed physical injuries on their child, including unexplained scratches, bruises, a lost tooth, a broken toe, a black eye, and other deep bruises on their bodies and feet,” the law firm’s press release stated.
The parents contacted the school with their concerns in January. The school then reached out to the school district. But according to Ciara Anderson, an attorney with the film, the school district “utterly failed” to take action.
“They did a sham investigation in which they looked at one ride,” Anderson said in a press conference Tuesday. “They did no other investigation, they asked no other questions and they provided no other monitoring. Because of these horrific failures by the school district, the bus aide was emboldened to continue her abuse — and she did.”
The school district has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Jones was arrested April 4 after a video recorded in March, which was released by the law firm on Tuesday, allegedly showed her “repeatedly hitting, punching, and stomping on a fragile 10-year-old boy.”
She was arraigned on the morning of April 5 and bonded out on a $5,000 bond, police said. A public defender is representing Jones, according to the district attorney.
Jones and her attorney have not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
She was fired the same day she was arrested, Todd Lambert, the district’s superintendent, said in a letter to the school community Friday. Jones was hired in August 2023 “after satisfactory reference checks and after passing a thorough background check,” and “had very limited access to students during her employment,” he added.
“This kind of behavior cannot be and is not tolerated,” Lambert wrote. “As parents, you trust us with the well-being of your children and you should never have to worry about them being harmed when they are in our care.”
In the press conference, the parents of the boy seen in the video spoke of their horror at learning how their son had been treated.
“How could someone that I trusted, someone that I was so friendly with, do this to my little boy?” the mother said.
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — The former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani now faces federal charges over allegations he stole millions from MLB’s highest-paid player in a gambling scheme, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Ippei Mizuhara has been charged with bank fraud for allegedly stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani to “finance his voracious appetite for illegal sports betting,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said during a press briefing.
Estrada claimed Mizuhara committed fraud on a “massive scale” to “plunder” Ohtani’s bank account to pay for his gambling debts.
Mizuhara had helped Ohtani, who did not speak or understand English, set up his bank account in 2018 in Arizona and “used that familiarity” to later steal the funds from Ohtani to help pay for illegal sports bets, the DOJ alleged. He is accused of wiring more than $16 million in unauthorized transfers from Ohtani’s checking account from November 2021 to January 2024, the DOJ said. He is also accused of impersonating Ohtani over the phone with the bank to approve wire transfers to the bookmakers, the DOJ said.
Estrada stressed that Ohtani is considered a victim in the case and has cooperated “fully and completely” in the investigation.
“There is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Ohtani authorized the over $16 million of transfers from his account to the bookmakers,” Estrada said.
Any winnings were deposited in Mizuhara’s own personal bank account, not any account owned by Ohtani, and the ex-interpreter allegedly admitted to a bookmaker to stealing from Ohtani, according to Estrada. Ohtani also provided his cellphone to investigators, who did not find any evidence to suggest that he was aware of or involved in the illegal gambling activity, the DOJ said.
“Our investigation has revealed that due to the position of trust that he occupied with Mr. Ohtani, Mr. Mizuhara had unique access to Mr. Ohtani’s finances,” Estrada said. “Mr. Mizuhara used and abused that position of trust in order to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani.”
Bank fraud carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, Estrada said.
Mizuhara is expected to appear in the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming days. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
The federal investigation is being conducted by the Los Angeles offices of IRS Criminal Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations, the main investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Dodgers announced they had fired the Japanese interpreter on March 20, after the gambling controversy surfaced. The team did not provide a specific reason for Mizuhara’s termination.
Ohtani addressed the scandal for the first time on March 25 during a press conference. In a prepared statement, Ohtani said through an interpreter, “I am very saddened and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this.”
“I never bet on baseball or any other sports,” Ohtani continued. “I never asked somebody to do that on my behalf and I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports.”
The 29-year-old pitching and hitting star, who signed a $700 million deal in the offseason to join the Dodgers, claimed he did not know about Mizuhara’s gambling until after a Dodgers game in Korea the prior week.
“Up until a couple days ago, I didn’t even know that this was happening,” he said at the time.
Mizuhara had worked with the Dodgers as Ohtani’s interpreter after serving in the same capacity with the Angels. Ohtani and Mizuhara’s relationship dates back to 2013, when Ohtani played for the Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League and Mizuhara was an interpreter for the team.
Ohtani has been playing for the Dodgers throughout the scandal, batting .333 with three home runs and eight RBIs for National League-leading Los Angeles. He is not pitching this season as he recovers from elbow surgery.
MLB announced it was investigating the situation last month, two days after the Dodgers fired Mizuhara.
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — The former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani now faces federal charges over allegations he stole millions from MLB’s highest-paid player in a gambling scheme, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Ippei Mizuhara has been charged with bank fraud for allegedly stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani to “finance his voracious appetite for illegal sports betting,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said during a press briefing.
The federal investigation is being conducted by the Los Angeles offices of IRS Criminal Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations, the main investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The Dodgers announced it had fired the Japanese interpreter on March 20, after the gambling controversy surfaced. The team did not provide a specific reason for Mizuhara’s termination.
Ohtani addressed the scandal for the first time on March 25 during a press conference. In a prepared statement, Ohtani said through an interpreter, “I am very saddened and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this.”
“I never bet on baseball or any other sports,” Ohtani continued. “I never asked somebody to do that on my behalf and I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports.”
The 29-year-old pitching and hitting star, who signed a $700 million deal in the offseason to join the Dodgers, claimed he did not know about Mizuhara’s gambling until after a Dodgers game in Korea the prior week.
“Up until a couple days ago, I didn’t even know that this was happening,” he said at the time.
Mizuhara had worked with the Dodgers as Ohtani’s interpreter after serving in the same capacity with the Angels. Ohtani and Mizuhara’s relationship dates back to 2013, when Ohtani played for the Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League and Mizuhara was an interpreter for the team.
MLB announced it was investigating the situation last month, two days after the Dodgers fired Mizuhara.
(FLORENCE, Colo.) — The notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has asked a federal judge to reinstate his telephone call and visiting privileges at the supermax prison in Colorado, where he’s serving a life sentence.
“Sorry to bother you again with the request that I have asked you before with regards to my wife, Emma Coronel,” Guzmán wrote to federal judge Brian Cogan in a letter dated March 20 and filed Tuesday in a New York district court.
“I ask that you please authorize her to visit me and to bring my daughters to visit me, since my daughters can only visit me when they are on school break, since they are studying in Mexico,” he wrote.
The Tuesday filing includes a handwritten envelope sent to the judge from Guzmán, who was convicted in 2019 of running the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico.
In November 2021, Emma Coronel Aispuro was sentenced to 36 months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering and conspiring to distribute cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana for import into the United States. She was also ordered to pay almost $1.5 million in fines.
Aispuro was also accused of conspiring with others to assist Guzmán in his July 2015 escape from Altiplano prison, and prosecutors said she also planned with others to arrange another prison escape for the drug kingpin before his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017. She was released from her California halfway house in September 2023.
In the March 20 letter, Guzmán writes that his wife is the only person who can visit him in prison because she lives in California, and other relatives would require visas to visit him.
“I also bother you to continue giving me the two 15-minute calls a month that you authorized me (one call every 15 days), since in May of 2023, the facility stopped giving me calls with my daughters,” he wrote. “And I haven’t had calls with them for seven months.”
“I have asked when they are going to give me a call with my daughters and the staff here told me that the FBI agent who monitors the calls does not answer. That’s all they’ve told me,” he continued. “I ask you to please continue giving me the two calls that you authorized me per month. I don’t understand why the prosecutor who is in charge of the SAMs Rules stopped authorizing calls with my daughters.”
Guzmán said what is being done to him is “unprecedented discrimination” and is asking the judge to intervene.
Guzmán was convicted in 2019 of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, including large-scale narcotics violations and a murder conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracies, unlawful use of a firearm and a money laundering conspiracy. A federal appeals court in January 2022 upheld the conviction after Guzmán sought to overturn it in Brooklyn federal court on 10 grounds. The appellate court determined that “none of these claims has merit.”
Under Guzmán’s leadership, the Sinaloa cartel imported more than 1 million kilograms of cocaine and hundreds of kilograms of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the U.S. Trial evidence proved the cartel used murder, kidnapping, torture, bribery of officials and other illegal methods to control territory throughout Mexico and to subdue opposition.
