It’s a new year, but you can’t be blamed for feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.
When it comes to the sentencing of convicted online-gaming-company swindler and Las Vegas high roller Robert Alexander, everything old is new again.
Back in January 2020, Alexander pleaded guilty to securities fraud and wire fraud in the U.S. District Court of Southern New York after it was shown he’d bilked investors in his Kizzang LLC online-gaming platform out of millions, with at least $1.3 million converted for his personal use. That included paying for family expenses and gambling a small bundle in Las Vegas.
Alexander is well known as the fellow who managed to burn through his $30 million payday for selling his company to the makers of Grand Theft Auto. His Kizzang promotions featured photos with Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and professional athletes. In the end, the magazine won a $1.025 million default judgment against Alexander.
The convictions each carried the possibility of a 20-year prison sentence. Although no one reasonably expected Alexander to be dragged off to the federal penitentiary for four decades, jilted Kizzang investors surely believed he would be made to pay a considerable price for taking advantage of them.
Did I mention that was back in January 2020?
Well, time flies when you’re a guy attempting to avoid the indignities of a prolonged stay at the Gray Bar Hotel.
It wasn’t as if the facts were in much doubt. A February 2019 Securities and Exchange Commission complaint described it this way: “From at least February 2013 to mid-2017, Alexander raised approximately $9 million from approximately 53 investors in Kizzang. Alexander falsely told investors that the funds entrusted to him by them would be used solely for business purposes. Instead, Alexander used the Kizzang bank accounts, funded almost entirely with investor dollars, as his personal piggybank, his daughter’s culinary-school tuition, his mortgage and car payments, and his gambling habit. Alexander also failed to disclose material information to investors, including his use of investor funds to make a $50,000 payment to satisfy a prior legal judgment entered against him, arising out of a lawsuit alleging that he had stolen approximately $1.2 million from a business associate.”
At the time of Alexander’s guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman painted the defendant as a real hustler. “Alexander betrayed his investors and spent their funds to support his lifestyle, including gambling excursions to multiple casinos and a luxury car for one of his family members. Robert Alexander now faces serious time in prison for gaming his investors.”
Pretty clever pun there. A gaming platform guy who games his investors. Get it?
Well, so far it appears the joke is on the prosecution and all the folks who took the time to investigate the Kizzang scandal. After admitting guilt, Alexander proceeded not to go to prison in 2020. In addition to a bad case of sticky fingers, he also suffers from other medical maladies and managed to remain free.
That’s not so bad, you say, what with COVID raging. Fair enough.
Then came 2021.
Then went 2021. Alexander remained on the street and in a fair number of Las Vegas casinos, according to multiple sources.
By January 2022, he was back in court via live-stream with defense attorney Brian Jacobs explaining that his client couldn’t see his way clear to serving his sentence, because he was scheduled for a February cornea transplant.
Couldn’t see. Cornea transplant. Get it?
When informed that post-surgery Alexander wouldn’t be able to travel to court for six months, the judge generously moved the sentencing hearing to mid-August. That, we might figure, would give Alexander plenty of time to heal from his surgery before learning his fate before the court.
But as it turned out, that August sentencing, a process known as a Fatico hearing, was written in pencil. It was pushed all the way to Jan. 23, 2023, due to Alexander’s increasingly complicated medical status.
In a recent filing, Jacobs presented a letter to the court in which both defense and prosecution agreed that Alexander’s newly scheduled Feb. 6 eye surgery would be the last stop on the way to a sentencing hearing. It included this assurance: “But should the surgery not take place on February 6, the Fatico hearing should be set for early April and the defendant should be advised that the hearing will not be adjourned again, and that any surgery should be scheduled after that date.”
With that agreement, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter Jr. approved yet another sentencing delay and set the final, final, final hearing for Aug. 9, 2023, following Alexander’s January 2020 guilty plea.
That’s final. As in, no more medical excuses for the defendant.
I’m no doctor, but I suspect Mr. Alexander has developed an allergy to prison.
