On Q Professional Investigations

Owen Hanson, who often went by his nickname, “O-Dog,” led a charmed life. He had been a popular high school athlete who found some athletic success—and even more popularity—at the University of Southern California.

After graduating with a business degree, he got his real estate license and, over time, undertook several seemingly successful business ventures that enabled him to buy a luxury home in Redondo Beach and a number of vacation properties elsewhere, drive expensive cars, travel routinely to Las Vegas to gamble, and party with professional athletes and celebrities.

However, as law enforcement came to discover, Hanson’s most productive “business venture” turned out to be a violent international drug trafficking, sports gambling, and money laundering enterprise that operated in the U.S., Central and South America, and Australia from 2012 to 2016. And late last year, Hanson was sentenced in U.S. district court in San Diego to more than 21 years in federal prison for heading up that criminal enterprise. He was also ordered to pay a $5 million criminal forfeiture, which included $100,000 in gold coins, his luxury vehicles, jewelry, vacation homes, a sailboat, and interests in several businesses.

Twenty-one of Hanson’s associates were also charged in this crime ring, and all have pleaded guilty—the most recent one in April 2018.

So how did a one-time talented and well-liked school athlete turn into the mastermind behind a major criminal operation?

The story of Owen Hanson’s illicit activities actually began in the early 2000s in college, when he sold recreational drugs and steroids to his teammates. But it wasn’t until early 2014—on the heels of an international sports gambling investigation that the FBI worked in partnership with the New South Wales Police Force in Australia—that some of Hanson’s post-graduate activities got the attention of federal law enforcement. And once again, investigators from the FBI and New South Wales joined forces to uncover a second gambling—and, ultimately, drug trafficking—enterprise that would lead all the way to Hanson.

Read More

The general concept of criminal restitution—perpetrators having to repay their victims any losses caused by their illegal actions—has been around for ages.

In the U.S., there are various restitution laws at both the state and federal level. One of the more significant federal laws on restitution was the Mandatory Restitution Act of 1996, which established procedures for determining the amount of restitution to which a victim may be entitled and made restitution mandatory for many types of federal crimes.

Restitution is an attempt to make crime victims whole again—basically to “restore” them to the same condition they were in before being victimized. Which makes the recent case of a Liberty, Missouri lawyer charged with obstruction of justice by stealing victim restitution funds seem all the more abhorrent.

Attorney Robert J. Young was legally representing a Missouri man who had been indicted and convicted in federal court of a fraudulent scheme to steal money from his employer. The defendant—who worked as the director of information technology at a Midwest construction company—stole hundreds of thousands of dollars by using his company credit card to purchase unnecessary equipment and then reselling it for personal profit. The defendant used the illegal proceeds to buy such luxury items as customized motorcycles, a boat, jet skis, and a large motor home.

Young’s client, who was ultimately sentenced to a federal prison term, had also been ordered to pay a total of $442,000 in restitution to his company. His initial sentencing hearing had been set for January 2016, and Young had made it known to court personnel in advance that his client would be making a partial restitution payment at that hearing.

Before the January hearing, the defendant’s wife had given Young more than $62,000 for her husband’s partial restitution payment through several deposits to the lawyer’s client trust account and business account as well a personal check. But at the January 2016 sentencing hearing, Young did not make the partial restitution payment on behalf of his client. Instead, he told the court that the funds were still in his client trust account, so the hearing was postponed until March 2016.

Read More