The latest alleged scandal involves an illegal gambling operation and .75 million of Mickelson’s money. Not necessarily a confession, but an explanation as to why his name keeps coming up in relation to federal investigations of unsavory people.
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Mickelson, who was not named in court documents, is the unnamed “gambling client”, according to Outside the Lines. The next day, Silveira transferred the $2.475 million to another account he controlled at JPMorgan. Prosecutors will not say. Gregory Silveira of La Quinta will not comment.
Silviera’s court documents note that he was apart of “an illegal gambling operation which accepted and placed bets on sporting events“.
An original draft of a plea deal between the government said that the gambling client was “P.M”. Silveira couldn’t be reached and his attorney wouldn’t comment. ESPN reports that he has made $77 million from his three decades on the PGA Tour. No email or recorded conversation has been recovered as evidence. Mickelson was cleared by the FBI and Security and Exchange Commission, which found no evidence of any wrongdoing.
Silveira faces a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment and other penalties, including a fine of $1.5 million or twice the gross gain or gross loss – whichever is greater – resulting from the offenses, his plea agreement shows.
“If federal investigators discovered that Mickelson had been complicit in the concealment, Mickelson could have been charged with conspiracy to launder his money”. Mickelson’s personal attorney, Glenn Cohen, said another lawyer is assisting his client on the illegal sports betting issue.
The report states that Mickelson has not been charged with a crime, and is not being investigated.
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For Mickelson, nothing more from a legal standpoint will likely come from this. He has been known to legally bet sizable sums of money on games in Las Vegas. His connection to Silveira has remained unclear, per Fish and Purdum. The New York Post reports the law is created to go after the gambling rings, not the gamblers.
