Las Vegas resident Brandon Sattler finally found a predicament he couldn’t talk his way out of.
After arranging to plead guilty to a single count of wire fraud in a scheme that saw him rake in millions from private investors in a bogus media-installation company with supposed casino contracts, Sattler was sentenced by US District Judge Gloria Navarro to serve 51 months in prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release, and pay $7.65 million in restitution to three victims.
According to court documents in a related civil case, Sattler received more than $11 million from businessman James Russell, Grant Whitcher, and Julie Russell in what his victims believed was a legitimate casino-related venture.
In a way, it was. Sattler spent millions of the money he collected at gaming tables on the Strip and elsewhere. After his scheme was exposed and the FBI took an interest in him, he attempted to cooperate to lessen the impact of any sentence he might receive.
True to his nature, sources say, he expressed confidence that the matter would be resolved with minimal prison time. How wrong he was.
Not that he didn’t try to cooperate. Sattler in a deposition in a bankruptcy case gave testimony that implicated longtime Las Vegas casino executive Scott Sibella in inappropriate conduct that endangered his gaming license. Sibella, then the president of Resorts World Las Vegas, was cleared after a year-long Gaming Control Board investigation, only to later be convicted of violating a provision of the Bank Secrecy Act while employed as president of the MGM Grand on the Strip. Sibella allowed illegal bookmaker Wayne Nix to gamble, despite knowing his funds were likely derived illegally.
Sattler, 47, also appears to have played a role, however small, in the investigation of illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, notorious for accepting millions of dollars in bets from baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani’s former translator Ippei Mizuhara. According to one source, Sattler used his connection to a Resorts World employee to determine Bowyer’s whereabouts.
Sattler also blamed some of his trouble on the relationship he had with self-styled vigilante casino high-roller Robert “Robin Hood 702” Cipriani, who shared fraud-related information he learned from Sattler with federal authorities.
All tallied, it wasn’t much and certainly not enough for federal prosecutors to overlook Sattler’s previous fraud-related convictions.
Sattler falsely claimed his company needed loans to complete its renovation contracts with several casinos, according to a news release from Nevada US Attorney Jason Frierson’s office. “Sattler altered information from his bank to show his bank account held more than it actually did in order to influence the three individual lenders to loan money to his company. After obtaining the loans, Sattler made misrepresentations in order to extend the maturity date of the loans and delay the deadline for repayment. In total, Sattler caused a loss of more than $7 million.”
Prior to sentencing, Sattler’s veteran defense attorney Shawn Perez argued unsuccessfully for leniency, imploring the court to consider his client’s admitted compulsive-gambling problem.
“Sattler has a demon – an addiction to gambling,” Perez wrote in a presentence memorandum. “It’s an addiction that, unfortunately, has consumed his life for a number of years. Though not an excuse for his crimes, it is a factor that need be considered – and in fact, a factor that Mr. Sattler wishes the Court to consider in imposing a sentence that is appropriate under the facts and circumstances of this case.”
Perez had sought a 41-month sentence in the case.
Assistant US Attorney Daniel Schiess countered that Sattler’s previous convictions and sentences had failed to deter him.
“Instead of the punishments for prior offenses deterring the defendant from committing further crimes, it appears it has only led the defendant to engage in more sophisticated fraudulent schemes,” Schiess wrote in his response memorandum, pointing out that Sattler had been convicted of fraud on three occasions.
“Sattler admitted his crime,” Perez wrote. “It is important to note that he did not do this to improve his lifestyle. The reason, but not the excuse, was much darker. … Mr. Sattler is facing his addiction and is asking that one of the terms of his supervised release be that he must refrain from gambling for the entire period of his supervised release. He hopes that there are programs available to him while he is incarcerated that will help him to confront this demon and help him lead a more productive crime free life upon his release.”
Schiess: “No doubt he is an addict, but he has not used the opportunities presented by his criminal convictions to pause and reset his life’s direction – to beat or apparently try to beat his addiction.”
Instead, his frauds became more sophisticated, the prosecutor wrote: “It required Sattler to carefully devise a plan and to act convincingly as he orchestrated the plan – skills that he apparently acquired through his evolving criminal conduct and from his extensive gambling experience.”
