Potomac man sentenced for illegal gambling business

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005

Alvin Kotz used to spend every Tuesday and Wednesday during football season at Timpano’s Italian Chop House in Rockville.

But the 70-year-old Potomac resident wasn’t just there for a good meal or to watch a game. He was there to pay or collect debts for the gambling operation he ran from late 2002 to January 2004, according to his July guilty plea before a U.S. District Court judge.

On Monday, Kotz, of 7904 Crestdale Drive, was sentenced to three years in prison for money laundering and running an illegal gambling business, according to a U.S. Department of Justice release. He was also ordered to pay a $6,000 fine in addition to the prison term. Kotz pleaded guilty on July 19, the release stated.

According to Kotz’s plea, he ran the gambling business, which solicited bettors from around Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to wager on sporting events, for a little more than a year between 2002 and 2004.

Kotz’s operation directed bettors to place wagers with an offshore wire room called World Wide Wagering Inc., based in the Caribbean Island, Dominica. The organization gave bettors a code number, password, telephone number and Web site address for the wire room, according to the release. Bettors wagered on all types of sports including professional and college football and basketball games and professional auto racing, according to the release.

A search of Kotz’s residence on Jan. 21, 2004, turned up a computer that contained a spreadsheet of activity for the week of Dec. 13, 2004. It listed more than 125 bettors and indicated that Kotz’s organization had a profit of approximately $330,000.

According to his plea, Kotz worked with an associate, David McGowan, 70, of Chevy Chase, to deposit the money from the gambling business into a bank account.

McGowan, of 4800 Chevy Chase Drive, pleaded guilty to conducting an illegal gambling operation in August and is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 14, along with another co-defendant, Stuart Weinstein, 55, of Baltimore.

Kotz has a criminal record that dates back to the 1960s.

According to a U.S. District Court search warrant affidavit, Kotz’s arrest record shows that he has been charged with 21 different offenses from 1962-91. He served four years in prison for conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen and counterfeit securities in 1971, four years for bribery of a public official in 1975, six months for operating an illegal gambling business in 1980 and 10 years stemming from drug charges in 1991.

McGowan also has a long criminal history. He has been arrested for 15 different offenses from 1951-96, the affidavit stated. The arrests include gambling and wagering violations in 1968, 1970 and 1979.

He served four years for forgery in 1962 and also served time for conspiracy to sell cocaine in 1996 but has been on supervised release since 1997, the affidavit stated.