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The official paperwork is in following an accepted plea deal in the bizarre extortion case involving celebrity sports tout Adam Meyer, who may face as much as 12 years in prison for his crimes, including the involvement of an armed accomplice, in extracting $45 million from a wealthy Wisconsin punter.
News of the hearing involving the plea deal surfaced a couple of weeks back, but only recently have certain court documents involving the deal become available. Meyer, a tout who appeared on TV and online shows on both sides of the Atlantic before his fraudulent “Real Money Sports” empire came crashing down, pled guilty to five of six felony counts in the case.
Adam Meyer as he once appeared on his RealMoneySports.com website
Meyer had been held without bond in the case for over a year, and won’t be out of the prison world any time soon. His latest defense attorney — Meyer went through several — will argue for a lesser five-year sentence at the sentencing hearing in mid-December. Prosecutors will argue for the 12-year sentence, given the severity of the violations.
The most extreme of the crimes occurred in 2012, when Meyer fabricated a scheme to convince his wealthy client-victim, Wisconsinite Gary Sadoff, that unnamed mob figures believed that Sadoff was Meyer’s business partner and was co-responsible for many millions of dollars of Meyer’s lifestyle and drug-habit induced debt. Meyer’s accomplice chambered a live round into a handgun held against Sadoff’s neck, and Sadoff soon wired $9.8 million to Meyer’s accounts. (The accomplice, Ray Batista, also faces charges in a pending trial after pleading not guilty).
That extortion act and related count was only one of the five to which Meyer pled guilty. Meyer admitted to three separate counts of wire fraud, the extortion charge, plus a separate count of interstate travel in support of a racketeering enterprise. A sixth count, of brandishing a firearm in the committal of said crime, was dismissed; that it was his accomplice who brandished the firearm (at Meyer’s behest), is one of those technicalities that will be dealt with in the accomplice’s trial, at which Meyer is expected to voluntarily cooperate in exchange for reduced sentencing.
One of the most interesting facts to emerge from the plea-deal hearing was that Meyer extorted some $45 million from Sadoff, a wealthy alcohol distributor, rather than “only” the $25 million announced and published in earlier reports. More, the extortion and fraud extended over a period of several years (table below), showing that Sadoff was the whale of sorts who was exploited by Meyer to fund Meyer’s celebrity lifestyle.
Prosecutors and investigators were able to assemble a long list of the funds transfers sent from Sadoff to Meyer over the years, many under the direct threat of violence to Sadoff or his immediate family members. From the related court documents, this record of amounts Sadoff sent, under duress, to Meyer:
March 25, 2009 — $300,000
March 27, 2009 — $808,000
April 2nd, 2009 — $696,000
May 22, 2009 — $325,000
July 28, 2009 — $200,000
August 4, 2009 — $1,500,000
August 5, 2009 — $100,000
October 2, 2009 — $1,500,000
October 5, 2009 — $1,000,000
December 3, 2009 — $750,000
December 10, 2009 — $2,250,000
January 22, 2010 — $250,000
February 22, 2010 — $440,000
March 11, 2010 — $200,000
March 15, 2010 — $133,000
May 13, 2010 — $3,000,000
May 24, 2010 — $2,900,000
January 25, 2011 — $850,000
April 26, 2011 — $800,000
November 1, 2011 — $4,000,000
November 29, 2011 — $325,000
December 14, 2011 — $1,500,000
April 16, 2012 — $900,000
April 18, 2012 — $2,500,000
April 20, 2012 — $2,000,000
April 20, 2012 — $4,000,000
April 24, 2012 — $400,000
October 2, 2012 — $200,000
October 2, 2012 — $500,000
February 6, 2013 — $500,000
February 11, 2013 — $2,500,000
February 11, 2013 — $4.750,000
TOTAL — $45,300,000
The $45.3 million total may well be the largest fraud-and-extortion crime foisted upon a single punter in the history of sports betting. Meyer billed himself as the “sports consultant to the stars,” and often claimed outlandish successful picking rates in excess of 60 percent. As part of the fraud clams and plea deal, Meyer admitted those claims were false. Meyer also admitted to falsely claiming that his Real Money Sports enterprise used extensive computer analysis to predict said results.
Meyer’s bizarre original defense plans, complicated further by his violation of his original parole terms and his cycling through multiple defense attorneys, included the claims that he was actually an agent of the US government, assisting them in the ongoing battle against organized crime. Meyer claimed to be an undercover source providing valuable info to federal investigators, and was thus encouraged to take steps to keep his tout business operating, even if that meant fraud and extortion along the way. No substantive evidence supporting those claims has emerged.
