Prosecutors Recommend Prison Time for ‘Ray Donovan’ Producer
Federal prosecutors are recommending that Bryan Zuriff, former executive producer of Showtime’s “Ray Donovan,” receive a sentence of 6 to 12 months in prison for his involvement in an online gambling ring linked to Russian-American organized crime.
Zuriff’s attorneys last week argued for a probationary sentence, noting that he was unaware that his activity had any connection to a Russian-American money laundering operation. He was among dozens arrested in April for their involvement.
In July, Zuriff pled guilty to acceptance of financial instruments for unlawful Internet gambling, and agreed to pay a $500,000 fine as part of the plea deal.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, in a memorandum to U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, wrote that Zuriff’s high stakes sports book catered to high net worth and celebrity clients, and he used illegal sports gambling websites to open accounts that clients used to place bets.
“It was not uncommon for bets worth tens of thousands of dollars to be placed using these sites,” Bharara wrote. “Zuriff assisted co-conspirators Hillel Nahmad, aka ‘Helly,’ and Illya Trincher’s illegal gambling operation by providing them with accounts at various websites that were operating illegally in the United States.” Bharara provided excerpts from a transcript of a phone call intercepted by wiretap in which Zuriff discuss bets on the Giants-Patriots Superbowl, college basketball and from an unnamed individual who had just gotten out of rehab.
Bharara wrote that Zuriff’s conduct “was not short-lived, but extended over many ‘years’…And the best that he personally booked, and that he enabled to be booked on the websites to which he provided access, totaled in the many millions of dollars.” He added that “despite Zuriff’s intelligence, upbringing and education, he was still not deterred from entering the illegal world of gambling.”
Zuriff is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 25.
Last week, Zuriff’s attorneys, Isabelle Kirshner and Charles Clayman, said that the “interests of justice” do not require that he be sentenced within the sentencing guideline range of 6 to 12 months.
In the attorneys’ letter to the court, they describe how he has been a respected figure in entertainment and devoted father of four who “has had a gambling problem since he was a child.” His sports gambling accelerated, they write, after his grandfather sold his business and he received about $9 million in proceeds from the sale.
“Mr. Zuriff will have to face the rest of his life with the stigma of a felony conviction,” they write. “He has already suffered the humiliation of extensive press coverage surrounding his arrest and plea. His reputation has been ruined. He has a lot of work to do to restore his good name and he is intent on doing so.” But they said that even though he has “a problem,” “prison is not the solution to that problem.”
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