Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and his longtime agent, Nez Balelo, have settled their dispute with a Hawaiian developer over a $240 million Hawaii housing development, TMZ reported on Wednesday March 11.
Attorneys for both parties agreed to a deal that would dismiss the case with prejudice after agreeing to a settlement “of all claims and causes of action” according to the outlet.
Developer Kevin Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto first brought the project to Ohtani, 31, and his agent, hoping the superstar baseball player would help promote it. However, Hayes and Matsumoto later claimed Ohtani and Balelo had them fired in order to advance their own interests.
“Balelo and Ohtani, who were brought into the venture solely for Ohtani’s promotional and branding value, exploited their celebrity leverage to destabilize and ultimately dismantle Plaintiffs’ role in the project — for no reason other than their own financial self-interest,” the lawsuit claims, according to the New York Post.
“This case is about abuse of power,” the suit continues. “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.”
The lawsuit also called for Ohtani and Balelo to be “held accountable for their actions, not shielded by fame or behind-the-scenes agents acting with impunity.”
Ohtani’s lawyers sought to dismiss the case in September 2025, arguing the developers “exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development,” according to documents obtained by ESPN.
The settlement comes while Ohtani sits on top of the sports world. An icon in the United States and his native Japan, he has won back-to-back World Series championships with the Dodgers and three straight National League MVP awards. He is in the midst of a 10-year, $700-million contract with Los Angeles.
Ohtani is also part of Team Japan, currently competing at the World Baseball Classic. He hit a grand slam in his second at-bat of the tournament as Japan clobbered Chinese Taipei, 13-0, on Friday, March 6.
“I knew it was going to leave the park right after I hit it,” Ohtani said, per MLB.com. “It’s important to score first, so I really wanted to drive in at least a run.”
The settlement also seemingly marks the end of Ohtani’s 2024 legal saga, which also included his interpreter’s alleged involvement in a gambling scandal. After ESPN first uncovered in 2024 that $4.5 million in wire funds were sent from Ohtani’s bank account to a California bookmaking operation, an investigation ensued that revealed the interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen more than $16 million from Ohtani to cover his gambling debts.
Mizuhara, 41, was charged with one count of bank fraud and ordered to pay the money back to Ohtani. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison while Ohtani was cleared of any wrongdoing.
