A federal judge handed down a six-month jail term Monday for a man who continued to run a multimillion-dollar Internet sports betting operation after he was caught in order to help the government prosecute people who worked for him and helped hide profits.
Felix Gee Wan Tom has until July 7 to turn himself in.
The government says Tom, 40, was involved in the gambling operation since 2005 and was the master agent or head bookie from 2009 to 2012.
Federal prosecutor Larry Butrick told U.S District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway that another man, Allen Yamada, created the organization but that Tom became its leader. "He ran the show, and he became the face of this organization," Butrick said.
Yamada was sentenced Thursday to 10 months in jail.
Thomas Ky, the man who admitted laundering more than $1.3 million in gambling proceeds for Tom, Yamada and others through his Assaggio restaurants, was sentenced May 7 to six months in jail.
Tom was facing a prison term of between seven and nine years under federal court advisory sentencing guidelines for transmitting wagering information, money laundering and tax fraud.
Butrick recommended a jail term of between eight and 14 months because Tom helped the government build gambling, money laundering and tax fraud cases against at least 20 other people.
Defense lawyer Myles Breiner said that for over two years, Tom met with and secretly recorded the other defendants for the FBI.
"These were people with whom he had close personal relationships," Breiner said.
In addition to sentencing Tom to the jail term, Mollway ordered him to pay the Internal Revenue Service $118,601 restitution for understating his income for 2011. She also finalized an order requiring Tom to forfeit the $1 million in cash authorities seized from in his Kakaako high-rise condominium in May 2012. Butrick said the bulk of the $1 million seized from the condo was hidden in an air duct.
Plus, Mollway is requiring the forfeiture of $330,483 of Tom’s money seized at another defendant’s home, another $1 million seized from safe deposit boxes and accounts at three Las Vegas casinos, $858,852 from three bank accounts and $209,290 in cash Tom later surrendered. He is also forfeiting the downtown Honolulu condominium from where he ran the gambling operation, a Nevada home and $148,736 profit from the sale of the Kakaako condominium.
Tom told Mollway while he lost all of his cars, homes and money, he gained a reconnection with his family and learned what it’s like to make an honest living.
