\n<\/p>\n
A man with alleged ties to Israeli organized crime helped run high-stakes illegal poker games at a luxury Encino mansion owned by former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, according to authorities and court documents.<\/p>\n
Yevgeny Gershman, 50, of Woodland Hills, has agreed to plead guilty to four federal counts, including conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, immigration fraud, money laundering and being a prohibited person in possession of firearms, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Under a plea agreement, Gershman faces a sentence of 24 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $50,000 fine.<\/p>\n
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 6, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a public information officer for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Gershman also has criminal punishment in israel<\/u>It also includes murder conspiracy and drug trafficking, L.A. federal prosecutors said in court filings.<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Gershman was a central figure in a gambling operation run from a mansion on Gable Drive in Encino, where organizers hosted high-stakes poker games and took a percentage of each pot, known as a “rake.”<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, the alleged illegal gambling took place between September 2021 and July 2022, when the Encino mansion was rented out on a regular basis to host poker games.<\/p>\n
Authorities alleged that Arenas, 44, rented out the home, while Gershman and alleged co-conspirators Evgeny Turevsky, Alan Austria and Yarin Cohen managed operations, recruiting players and managing events with dealers, chefs, valets and armed security.<\/p>\n
Arenas and the other co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled for trial on May 5, McAvoy said.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, Gershman allegedly hired young women to serve drinks, perform massages and provide “companionship” to players and charged them a percentage of their earnings.<\/p>\n
He also allegedly send coded text messages to women<\/u> Inviting them to work in illegal poker games \u2013 in one case asking if a woman would be willing to engage in prostitution at home.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors also alleged that Gershman’s immigration fraud went beyond false statements on government forms.<\/p>\n
According to the original indictment, Gershman was accused of conspiring with co-defendant Valentina Cojocari, 35, of Woodland Hills. sham marriage<\/u> To pay him financially in exchange for his participation, in order to obtain a green card.<\/p>\n
The guilty plea includes serious immigration consequences for Gershman, who entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2021. His plea agreement states that deportation back to Israel is “practically inevitable” and he could be permanently barred from returning to the US.<\/p>\n
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Section, and IRS Criminal Investigation. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man with alleged ties to Israeli organized crime helped run high-stakes illegal poker games at a luxury Encino mansion owned by former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, according to authorities and court documents. Yevgeny Gershman, 50, of Woodland Hills, has agreed to plead guilty to four federal counts, including conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3444,9085,8034,774,3749,2001,16239,1518,4788],"class_list":["post-50268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-crime","tag-feds","tag-figure","tag-helped","tag-illegal","tag-israeli","tag-poker","tag-ring","tag-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50277,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50268\/revisions\/50277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}