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Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is facing a lawsuit from a Hawaii real estate investor and broker.
They claim Ohtani and his agent got them fired from a $240 million luxury housing development that they were hoping the two-way superstar would endorse, according to the New York Post.
The Post cites a lawsuit filed in Hawaii Circuit Court last Friday which alleges Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, continued to demand concessions from the project's developer, Kevin J. Hayes Sr.. and real estate broker, Tomoko Matsumoto. He then allegedly demanded that their business partner, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, drop them from the deal.
The lawsuit claims that Balelo and Ohtani were added to the venture “solely for [Ohtani’s] promotional and branding value,” but that the pair used their pull to cut the others out of the deal “for no other reason than their own financial self-interest.”
“This case is about abuse of power,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants used threats and baseless legal claims to force a business partner to betray its contractual obligations and strip Plaintiffs of the very project they conceived and built.
“Defendants must be held accountable for their actions, not shielded by fame or behind-the-scenes agents acting with impunity. Plaintiffs bring this suit to expose Defendants’ misconduct and to ensure that the rules of contract, fair dealing, and accountability apply equally to all — celebrity or not.”
Investment materials for the project, obtained by the Post, billed the Dodgers' slugger as the “Japanese Babe Ruth” and the development's first resident.
“Ohtani will act as the celebrity spokesperson for the project and has committed to purchasing one of the 14 residences within the project,” a brochure reads. “He also intends to spend significant time at The Vista in the off-season and will construct a small hitting and pitching facility for preseason training.”
The suit comes six months after Ohtani's former translator, Ippei Mizuhara, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay millions in restitution for stealing nearly $17 million from the three-time MVP's bank account.
Mizuhara then lost more than $40 million in sports gambling — something, it eventually emerged, Ohtani played no part in and had no knowledge of. It does not appear that Mizuhara bet on baseball.
MLB cleared Ohtani of any wrongdoing in June 2024.
