Texas gambler admits threatening Louisville coach, quarterback over $80K loss
Courtroom filings present threats triggered round the clock safety measures
States and sportsbooks transfer to curb betting-related athlete abuse
A Corpus Christi, Texas man has been convicted of issuing terroristic threats to members of the College of Louisville soccer staff after dropping a $80K guess.
Brian Mandel’s threats have been taken severely sufficient to spark round the clock safety for the recipients, in keeping with courtroom paperwork. (Picture: Jefferson County Detention Middle)
“I’m going to spend the remainder of my life making yours depressing. You value me $80K final evening. You possibly can both pay me or undergo the implications. You, your girlfriend, and your mother and father. They’ll all undergo,” Brian Mandel wrote to Louisville Cardinals quarterback Miller Moss.
Mandel additionally despatched threatening messages to Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm, and others, shortly after the Cardinals’ November 8 loss to the California Golden Bears, The Corpus Christi Caller-Instances reports.
I’m going to search out and kill you and your complete [expletive] household you piece of [expletive] …” he texted.
The messages have been taken severely sufficient to set off “rapid safety actions and round the clock safety,” in keeping with courtroom filings.
Lashing Out
Mandel pleaded responsible on February 17 to at least one depend of terroristic threatening within the second diploma, a felony. As a part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop six different counts, together with 5 prices of issuing terrorist threats and one in every of tried theft by extortion over $10K.
The extortion cost was related to the threats to Miller Moss and “people related to him,” per courtroom paperwork.
“Whereas the actions Brian Mandel took weren’t unprecedented – making an uninformed wager on a collection of faculty soccer video games and lashing out after the actual fact at everybody besides himself – the lengths he went to with a view to precise ‘revenge’ for his ignorant decisions represents one thing far worse,” Moss wrote in a sufferer affect assertion.
Assistant commonwealth lawyer Scott Drabenstadt instructed the courtroom: “We don’t downplay that for 3 days in November, within the lives of a number of individuals, there was a variety of worry, terror and mobilization of assets as a result of it was unknown. It was unknown who this menace particular person was.”
Mandel will serve two years of an unsupervised sentence throughout which period he’s prohibited from playing, together with pleasant bets with pals. He was additionally ordered to undertake a program of counselling and to make a partial restitution of $1,190 to the College of Louisville for the time beyond regulation prices for safety and safety ensuing from his threats.
Athlete Abuse
A 2025 NCAA-backed examine discovered betting-related abuse accounted for 11% of practically 4,000 flagged messages to varsity athletes — roughly double the speed of racial abuse or violent threats — and greater than one-third of Division I males’s basketball gamers reported harassment tied to wagers up to now yr.
In response, states together with Ohio, Maryland, and New Jersey have moved to limit or ban faculty participant prop bets and, in Ohio’s case, empower regulators to bar bettors who threaten athletes.
In the meantime, sportsbooks and business teams are taking motion as effectively. Operators like FanDuel, BetMGM, DraftKings have warned they’re ready to droop accounts linked to athlete abuse.