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‘Ray Donovan’ Producer Bryan Zuriff Pleads Guilty To Gambling Ring

Published by admin on July 27, 2013

NY Daily News – Hollywood producer Bryan Zuriff pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court Friday to running a high-profile sportsbook in Los Angeles that was part of a gambling ring with ties to Russian wiseguys.

Zuriff, 44, the executive producer of Showtime’s drama “Ray Donovan,” copped to running the L.A. book and having a hand in the New York operation, authorities said. He was one of 34 people indicted in April in connection with the ring, and the first one to take the fall.

Back in April, he put up his multimillion-dollar Brentwood, Calif., pad to make bail. Now he faces up to five years in the stir and will have to forfeit $500,000.

One of the rings alleged bigs is Hollywood’s “Poker Princess,” Molly Bloom. She once admitted to arranging high-stakes poker games in Tinseltown that included the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck and embattled New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez.

Zuriff’s West Coast operations catered to gamblers betting on the outcomes of popular sporting events, said Preet Bharara, U.S. district attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The Hollywood hotshot also admitted he helped pull the strings on a “vast” gambling ring in New York, Bharara said. Specifically, Zuriff assisted Hillel Nahmad, 34, whose upper East Side art gallery was raided when he was indicted in April, and Illya Trincher, the son of a professional poker player and one of the ringleaders of the $100 million operation, authorities said.

Nahmad, Trincher and a nexus of Hollywood and Wall Street heavy-hitters operated a New York sportsbook that catered to millionaires and billionaires and had the Russian mob’s fingerprints all over it, authorities said.

Clients typically placed bets online through various accounts maintained on gambling websites that were operating illegally in the U.S.