Local man who was tipped off by cop about gambling investigation set to plead guilty
A local man portrayed by prosecutors as a leader in a gambling operation — who was tipped off by a state trooper about a police investigation — is scheduled to plead guilty to crimes, court records show.
Louis Ferrari Jr. is scheduled for a guilty plea in federal court Monday, May 13, according to records. The online records do not provide more specifics about the plea.
Federal authorities in 2023 charged seven local men with maintaining a gambling operation that took bets on sporting events and hosted illegal poker games in an office suite on Blossom Road in the city of Rochester. Ferrari allegedly ran an online betting operation, sport700.com.
Others have also pleaded guilty to gambling-related crimes.
A former state trooper, Thomas Loewke, has pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, admitting that he alerted Ferrari about the investigation. He was sentenced to probation.
Ferrari allegedly took steps to thwart the investigation after Loewke's tip.
"Ferrari owns and operates Ferrari Excavating on Steel Street in Rochester, where he collected cash payment of gambling losses from players and then laundered the illegal proceeds through the Ferrari Excavating business," federal prosecutors said in a statement at the time of the arrests.
"On April 17, 2021, as investigators arrived to execute a search warrant at 565 Blossom Road, they interrupted an ongoing illegal card game, which sent individuals fleeing," the statement said. "An unknown number of individuals successfully fled, eight were temporarily detained.
"Investigators seized multiple items such documents, which included gambling ledgers and timestamped website printouts of online gambling player account activities. That same day, they also seized the cell phones of Ferrari and Sprague, which both contained evidence of sports bookmaking."
Prosecutors alleged that Ferrari generated about $1.2 million with the gambling operation.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Louis Ferrari expected to plead guilty in gambling ring case
