Accountant to the rich and famous dodges prison for lying about sports gambling scheme

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Southern California accountant whose clients have included mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor and actor Channing Tatum escaped prison time for lying to federal investigators about his involvement in an illegal sports gambling operation.

William Eric Fulton was sentenced to one year probation and ordered to pay a fine of $673,290 at his sentencing hearing Tuesday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee rejected the government’s argument that Fulton merited a stiffer sentence because, prosecutors said, he was an organizer of the gambling scheme. The bookkeeper who was helped by the accountant represented only a very small part of Fulton’s business, the judge noted, and Fulton had an otherwise untarnished reputation.

“I deeply regret the choices I made,” Fulton said in apologizing to his clients, his employees and his family. “There’s no excuse for my actions.”

Fulton, 60, is the founder and managing partner of Fulton Management, and he was listed as one of Hollywood’s most powerful business managers by the Hollywood Reporter in 2015. Neither McGregor and Tatum are accused of wrongdoing in relation to being clients of Fulton’s company.

Fulton pleaded guilty this past July to providing false information when he was questioned by investigators with Homeland Security and the IRS about his involvement with the illegal bookkeeping enterprise set up by Wayne Nix, a former minor league baseball player.

Nix’s operation employed three former Major League Baseball players and for 20 years handled large bets for current and former professional athletes. He pleaded guilty two years ago and is still awaiting sentencing, presumably because he has been helping federal prosecutors with their cases against other participants in the betting ring.

Former LA Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was one big name athlete that got caught up in the investigation. He initially agreed to plead guilty to lying to investigators about placing bets with Nix’s enterprise but then changed his mind and decided to fight the charges.

According to federal prosecutors in LA, Fulton and his company provided bookkeeping, accounting, and tax preparation services for Nix.

While aware that Nix ran an illegal gambling business, Fulton laundered his money by transferring money between accounts, issuing checks and wires to Nix’s gambling clients who won large bets, and by helping Nix get bank loans for his gambling business.

Between March 2011 and October 2019, Fulton also loaned Nix $1.25 million at no cost to pay his gambling clients when he needed quick access to funds. The accountant also referred at least one client to Nix to engage in illegal betting, and he himself placed bets with Nix, including on a match involving one of his clients.

“In short, defendant and the company knowingly operated as a de facto back office for the Nix gambling business, making payments, moving funds, extending financing, and conducting bookkeeping and administrative tasks that allowed the Nix gambling business to continue to operate,” prosecutors said in their sentencing papers.

According to Nix’s plea agreement, he received payments for gambling losses from a professional football player, a Major League Baseball coach and a baseball analyst, none of whom were identified by name. The plea agreement also discusses a bettor who wagered $1 million a year with Nix’s operation, a $5 million bet on the 2019 Super Bowl, and a sports broadcaster who told Nix he was going to refinance his home to pay off gambling debts.

A former president of the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas pleaded guilty in January to allowing Nix to gamble, rather than report him to the casino’s compliance people, even though he knew Nix was an illegal sports bookmaker. The MGM Grand and The Cosmopolitan casinos entered into nonprosecution agreements to resolve a related investigation into alleged money laundering of millions of dollars of Nix’s illicit funds.

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