A former employee of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison for helping a Minneapolis woman launder the proceeds of an investment fraud scheme that cost investors about $10 million.
U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery ordered Michael Pham, 31, to spend a year and a day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. She also ordered him to pay $122,000 in restitution.
At his plea hearing in Minneapolis last March, Pham testified that he was a casino host assigned to deal with Kalin Dao, a 33-year-old Minneapolis woman who ran the investment fraud scheme. She favored Baccarat, a card game, and the sports book at the casino, which ranked her as a "platinum player," Pham said.
Pham said he was Dao's host from February 2007 to January 2008, when she'd often hit the casino several times a week, sometimes losing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Pham said Dao gambled with money she had wired to the casino from her investor accounts. On one occasion, she told him: "I got my butt kicked, so I have to go back and work extra hard because it's investor money," Pham recalled.
Dao pleaded guilty in May. Her parents, Nghia Trong Dao and Thu Nguyet Le, pleaded guilty in June to charges related to the scheme. Their sentencing dates have not been set.
DAN BROWNING
