A Kauai police commissioner who resigned in the midst of an FBI gambling investigation admitted in U.S. District Court on Monday that he ran a sports betting operation from his home and lied on his taxes.
Bradley Chiba, 37, pleaded guilty to owning and running an illegal gambling business with eight others and to failing to report to the Internal Revenue Service that he earned $39,779 in 2012 from the business.
He faces a maximum five-year prison term for the gambling charge and maximum three-year term for the tax charge at sentencing in October. He will also have to pay the IRS $11,096 in taxes he owes for 2012.
Until then he remains free on a $25,000 unsecured, signature bond.
As part of his plea deal, Chiba also agreed to forfeit to the government $15,886 in cash FBI agents seized in a raid of his Lihue home Feb. 3 and $13,549 they seized from his bank account.
Chiba told U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi that from August 2009 to February of this year, "I in fact did operate an illegal gambling business. It involved sports betting," and what’s known as 6-5, from his home. He said he sent betting line sheets to his players by email and received wagers by text messages.
He said he collected losses and paid out winnings weekly.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Butrick said the operation involved Costa Rican businesses that received the wagers directly from the gamblers online, then forwarded the information for a fee to Chiba — similar to another gambling operation on Oahu in which operators laundered their money through the owner of Assaggio restaurants.
"People all over the country bet on football games," said Michael Green, Chiba’s lawyer. "He was involved in that. He and some of his friends took bets." Green said the operation took in about $10,000 per month in wagers.
Federal prosecutors have not charged any of the other people involved in the operation. They list them in court documents by the initials R.D., T.C., K.B., E.S., C.D., J.R., B.H. and R.A.
Green said likely nothing is going to happen to the other eight but that Chiba will probably lose his job.
Chiba is the state Department of Public Safety’s Kauai intake service center administrator.
DPS spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said Chiba remains employed with the department pending its own investigations and the court proceeding.
Chiba was a sitting member of the Kauai County Police Commission when the FBI raided his home and bank account in early February.
He resigned from the post effective Feb. 27, said county spokeswoman Beth Tokioka.
Mayor Bernard Carvalho had appointed Chiba to a partial term in 2011, then reappointed him in January 2012 to a full three-year term.
