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A federal judge ordered one of three men who admitted being the master agent or head bookie at different times during a Honolulu-based Internet gambling operation to spend 30 days in jail and perform 400 hours of community service for tax evasion and transmitting wagering information over the Internet.
Mathew Verdugo pleaded guilty to the charges last October.
The jail term and community service are two of the conditions U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway included in a five-year probation sentence she handed down Monday. Mollway also ordered Verdugo to pay $42,401 in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. The tax amount is based on Verdugo having accepted $2.1 million in wagers in 2011 and 2012.
Verdugo also agreed to forfeit $8,155 in cash government agents seized from him in November 2012 and a Toyota pickup truck.
He was the last head bookie of the gambling operation before government agents moved in and shut it down. His predecessors, Allen Yamada and Felix Gee Wan Tom, are scheduled to face sentencing in May.
Yamada, 41, and Tom, 40, also pleaded guilty last year. Yamada agreed to forfeit to the government $793,136. Tom agreed to forfeit more than $3.2 million, a luxury condominium in downtown Honolulu, a home in Las Vegas and some jewelry, gems and luxury watches.
As head bookie, the men were in charge of about 20 agents or bookies who collected from or made payouts to bettors. The agents also gave the bettors the logins and passwords they needed to wager on sporting events online through several Costa Rica-based companies.
The Costa Rican companies collected the wagering information and passed it on to the Honolulu-based operation for payouts and collections.