The FBI informant who played a key role in bringing down a major drug syndicate is demanding action from Mark Wahlberg to correct the portrayal of his story in a recently released documentary.
RJ Cipriani, also known as “Jackpot,” got caught up in the criminal world of Owen Hanson, a former USC football player who transformed into a drug lord managing an extensive illicit operation involving sports betting and money laundering valued at millions of dollars.
In an interview with The U.S. Sun, Cipriani expressed his willingness to confront Hanson, who has served his prison sentence, in a boxing match to help raise funds for the financially struggling ex-criminal.
Hanson has just released a book entitled The California Kid, which details his astonishing rise and fall.
However, Cipriani is seething with the contents, which he says omits key elements of the tale, while leaving his name linked to Hanson’s money laundering network.
Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas production company has used Hanson’s work to produce a warts-and-all documentary due early next year.
Cipriani, 63, said he will use “every legal remedy at my disposal to clear my good name” and stressed he would have no problem taking Wahlberg, his organization and Amazon “to the cleaners”.
“I wouldn’t buy the book no matter what, but friends have sent me excerpts that, once I read them, are defamatory and slanderous toward my involvement with Owen Hanson,” a raging Cipriani told The U.S. Sun.
“Wahlberg and Unrealistic Ideas are now put on notice….. If the docuseries paints me in any way as being knowingly complicit with Owen Hanson and his crimes, then do so at your own legal peril.”
The Philadelphia-born high-stakes gambler is fuming with the Departed star and has been ignored by the actor and his team despite numerous attempts to contact him.
“If I was a violent person, which I’m not, I would bitch slap him,” Cipriani continued.
“I want my name cleared now.”
In 2017, Hanson was sentenced to 21 years and ordered to forfeit $5 million in assets. These included $100,000 in gold coins, luxury cars, high-end jewelry, vacation properties, a sailboat, and shares in several businesses.
Authorities also seized six encrypted cell phones linked to a Canadian company under investigation for allegedly providing secure technology to organized crime groups.
Hanson’s downfall began with his arrest at a San Diego golf course in September 2015.
Months after the FBI arrested him for arranging sales of cocaine and methamphetamine, Hanson was federally indicted as the leader of a crime ring called O-Dog Enterprises.
Officials accused the former football player of using his connections in the sports world to build a multimillion-dollar criminal empire consisting of drug trafficking, money laundering, and sports betting.
I go after bad guys no matter who they are, where they are, or how dangerous, rich or connected they are.
RJ Cipriani
By Hanson’s sentencing in 2017, authorities had made over 1,000 arrests connected to the case, with 800 occurring in a single day.
A key figure in Hanson’s capture was Cipriani, who called himself “Robin Hood 702,” a nod to his habit of donating substantial gambling winnings to charity (702 being the Las Vegas area code).
Cipriani became pivotal in exposing Hanson, triggering multiple international investigations and arrests.
Since their first meeting in Sydney, Australia, in 2011, the two had an arrangement where Hanson would give Cipriani his drug money to gamble, trusting he’d win and return the funds while keeping the rest for his Robin Hood mission.
In August 2015, Hanson enlisted Cipriani in a $2.5 million money-laundering scheme, instructing him to gamble the funds.
Instead, Cipriani deliberately lost the money at Sydney’s Star Casino while playing blackjack.
Furious at the betrayal, Hanson escalated his threats, even going so far as to send photos of masked men vandalizing Cipriani’s mother’s grave in Philadelphia.
The disturbing images were the final straw for Cipriani. He tipped off the FBI and Hanson’s downward spiral began.
OUT OF PRISON
After serving nearly seven years in federal prison in Colorado, Hanson was released early into California transitional housing in March.
Upon his release, Cipriani offered to pay for a one-bedroom apartment in Irvine, California, for Hanson while he got back on his feet.
“I said to him, ‘If you’ve reformed yourself and you’re going talk to kids about how harmful drugs are, and you’ve changed your life, then I’ll help you,'” Cipriani told The U.S. Sun. earlier this year.
“I always hope for the good in people. And I’m hoping that he’s changed. But if he walks off the straight line, guess who will be there.”
Big-hearted Cipriani wanted to help Hanson – but this latest betrayal has reignited explosive tension between the pair.
FEUD REIGNITED
Wahlberg initially approached the now LA-based high-stakes gambler about appearing in the Amazon series but turned him down because they wouldn’t give him an EP credit or fee.
He is working on a Sony Pictures Television production instead. “Pray it up, Marky Mark!” snapped Cipriani, cheekily nodding to Wahlberg’s religious social media posts.
He continued, “Mark understand this, I go after bad guys no matter who they are, where they are, or how dangerous, rich or connected they are.
“I’m the real life super hero that you always pretend to be in your dumb, fake ass movies. Remember, I’m Jackpot, govern yourselves accordingly.”
The U.S. Sun contacted Wahlberg and his production company but didn’t hear back.
