Interesting read... this guy lives like 10 min from where I live


Fond du Lac millionaire was betting tout's friend before he became victim

Before he was a victim of a $45 million scam engineered by Adam Meyer, Fond du Lac millionaire Gary Sadoff was a friend of the Florida betting tout, Meyer's lawyers claim in newly released court documents.

In fact, Meyer's lawyers say, Sadoff, who owns Badger Liquor Co. Inc. — the state's largest liquor distributorship — would let Meyer use his private jet and once paid off a $1.8 million bank loan he helped Meyer obtain.

That, however, was before Meyer, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was charged in 2014 in federal court with extortion, racketeering and fraud in a scheme that included having Sadoff threatened at gunpoint.

In the sentencing memo unsealed late last week, Meyer's lawyers argued that their client — a nationally known handicapper who once sold betting tips for up to $250,000 each — was basically a partner with Sadoff, also a heavy gambler.

Meyer has pleaded guilty to five felonies and is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court next month. Prosecutors have agreed to seek no more than 12 years in prison while Meyer's lawyers are asking that he receive no more than five years.

Meyer's lawyers argue that Sadoff and Meyer were once gambling pals who helped each other out.

"A perfect storm," attorneys Dennis Coffey and Joel Hirschhorn wrote in the 36-page sentencing memo. "When Mr. Sadoff was 'down' millions due to his gambling, Meyer made Mr. Sadoff almost all his money back. They became 'friends.' " There were, however, also plenty of bad tips and huge losses.

The jet was provided to Meyer so he could fly his grandfather home following cancer treatment, the lawyers wrote, and they said the 2009 loan came from American Bank in Fond du Lac. Sadoff was — and continues to be — a board member of National Exchange Bank & Trust, a lender that was a sister company to American Bank. The two banks merged last year.

Peter Stone, chairman of the holding company that owns National Exchange, did not return calls for comment.

Meyer quickly defaulted on the loan, which, his lawyers said, he would not have received had Sadoff not guaranteed payment. Meyer was "financially upside down to 'bookies' and organized crime individuals due to his obsessive, out of control gambling," Coffey and Hirschhorn wrote.

Sadoff's attorney Daniel Janssen declined to comment Friday and Sadoff did not return calls for comment.

In his heyday, Meyer, 44, billed himself as the "sports consultant to the stars" and used to rake in $200,000 to $300,000 per month by selling tips on various sporting events through his Real Money Sports Inc., Coffey and Hirshhorn wrote.

Sadoff was a heavy gambler, Meyer's lawyers wrote, saying that Sadoff told law enforcement that his bets "often reached as much as $10,000 to $25,000 (or more) per game. The size of Mr. Sadoff's wagers with, and through Meyer (as his 'adviser' and partner') were substantially larger," Hirschhorn and Coffey wrote.

Sadoff was a Meyer client since 2007 and paid Meyer $45.3 million from March 2009 through February 2011 as the result of Meyer's "extortion and his scheme to defraud," according to the plea agreement Meyer signed last year.

Meyer's scheme included impersonating a fictitious bookie named Kent Wong and flying to Wisconsin from Florida on a private plane to threaten Sadoff at gunpoint. In that incident, a Meyer associate, Ray Batista, sat in the backseat of a car and pointed a gun at Sadoff's head. Batista racked the weapon while Meyer demanded $10 million. Shortly afterward Sadoff wired the money to accounts chosen by Meyer.

Batista was recently sentenced to four years in prison.

The Meyer sentencing memo, which includes 13-pages of emails, was filed under seal because Coffey argued it would be "problematic" to Meyer if the document was made public. Coffey presumably was referring to Meyer's claims of being an informant who has aided numerous law enforcement agencies and professional sports leagues, including the NFL and Major League Baseball.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman rejected the request and unsealed the sentencing memo late last week. It was the second time the judge has rejected a Meyer request for secrecy.

In November 2015, Adelman unsealed a Meyer motion in which Hirschhorn said Meyer had been snitching for at least a dozen law enforcement agencies and helped the FBI seize $750 million from offshore bookies. That motion was unsealed following a court challenge by the Journal Sentinel.

The latest filing reiterates and adds to the Meyer's roster of agencies and sports leagues that he claims he's helped investigate. Among other things, Coffey and Hirschhorn argue Meyer tipped law enforcement about "what turned out to be accurate information he had acquired about an upcoming 'fixed' professional championship boxing match."

Hirschhorn, a Florida-based attorney, declined to provide details about Meyer's claims except to say he was sure the information was accurate.

The filing also makes reference to a 2007 Connecticut case in which Meyer was convicted of two felony fraud counts for a scamming about $6 million out of casinos in Connecticut and Nevada.

All information in that federal case was held confidential until recent weeks when portions of it were unsealed.

Meyer was sentenced to two years' probation, according to to the unsealed records.

Receiving probation for a $6 million scam is extremely unusual, especially since Meyer already had a criminal record at the time, said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor in New York and Chicago.

"Other than being handcuffed when he was first arrested, it sounds like he didn't spend a day in custody," said Cramer, who is now a managing director at Berkeley Research Group.

Federal federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of up to five years in prison for one count and four years for the second, records show.

"That is odd," Cramer said, "That's not a big departure (from sentencing guidelines). That's huge. That's absolutely huge."

Both the Connecticut and Wisconsin court documents indicate Meyer agreed to cooperate with authorities to avoid jail time.

In a 2007 order setting conditions for his probation, Meyer was ordered not to gamble "except with the authority and under the direction of law enforcement."

Coffey and Hirschhorn are using Meyer's record as an informant as one of their arguments for leniency in the extortion case. They are also asking that he not serve conventional prison time.

Meyer's work for authorities makes it extremely dangerous for Meyer to become housed among the general (prison) population," his lawyers wrote. Meyer has been in jail since April 2015 when his bail was revoked after he repeatedly flunked drug tests.

In addition to the federal fraud and extortion charges, Meyer is also facing felony drug charges in state court in Florida.

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/story...ctim/97161366/