Man Indicted in Money Laundering Scheme

A Chatsworth man has been indicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury on six counts of criminal conspiracy and money laundering in connection with a former $1-billion-a-year sports gambling operation run from the Dominican Republic, authorities said Thursday.

As the alleged “banker” for the now defunct betting ring--which federal prosecutors have described as the largest of its kind in the nation--Bernard R. Lavitch) worked to disguise the source and ownership of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen G. Larson said.

The mastermind of the operation, onetime San Francisco resident Ronald Sacco, and more than three dozen others in both the United States and the Caribbean nation have been arrested in connection with the scheme. Sacco pleaded guilty in 1994 to gambling and other charges and is serving time in a federal prison, Larson said.

The high-tech ring, established in 1988 and run by Sacco from his villa in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, used computers and 40 toll-free phone lines to take wagers from tens of thousands of gamblers across America.

“After receiving the cash or checks [from bettors],” Larson said in a prepared statement, “Lavitch would then conduct various financial and monetary transactions . . . designed to promote efficient and uninterrupted operation of Sacco’s bookmaking activity by avoiding the need to ship large sums of currency to and from Sacco’s illegal gambling operation . . . and to disguise and conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, and control” of the money.

The FBI is continuing its investigation.