Owen ‘O-Dog’ Hanson: From college footballer to ruthless drug lord
HE was the college football star turned ruthless drug lord who decorated his home with a silver-plated AK-47 and threatened people with beheadings. But Owen ‘O-dog’ Hanson’s lavish lifestyle came to a dramatic end this week.
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HE was the college football star turned ruthless drug lord who drove Porsches, decorated his home with a silver-plated AK-47 and threatened people with beheadings and photos of graves.
But Owen ‘O-Dog’ Hanson’s lavish lifestyle came to an end this week after he was jailed for 21 years over the trafficking of drugs from the US into Australia.
Born in Southern California, Hanson made a name for himself as a star tight end at the University of Southern California. Among the players on the team were future NFL stars Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart. The team won the 2004 championship and Hanson got himself a ring.
After leaving college, Hanson found himself embroiled in the world of sports betting, quickly earning a reputation as someone not to cross.
“He ran his gambling business like drug dealers run the drug business,” a former customer told Rolling Stone magazine.
“If you’re short a little money they’ll kill you — that’s the attitude that he brought. It took all of us off guard. We are all educated ... white dudes. We thought he was one of us, but he acted like an Italian gangster from Queens.”
According to the Washington Post, Hanson soon expanded into the drug scene, acquiring a crew which included members with the nicknames “Tank” and “Animal”.
Soon federal authorities in the US would be drawn to Hanson and his operation, named ‘O-Dog Enterprise’. They would later accuse him of trafficking in cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and MDMA.
Soon Hanson had acquired enough money to build a lavish beach home in California. He adorned it with a silver-plated AK-47 pressed with the Louis Vuitton logo, Rolling Stone reported.
He drove around in Porsches and posted photos on social media of his opulent lifestyle, partying shirtless poolside at Las Vegas casinos with bikini-clad babes.
A regular visitor to Australia, Hanson boasted he could sell a kilogram of cocaine in Australia for $228,000 compared with $26,000 in Los Angeles. He also used violence and intimidation to recoup debts.
Eventually Hanson’s ambitions led him to reach out to philanthropist and charity gambler Robert J. Cipriani in 2011 with an offer. Hanson posed as a wealthy investor who believed in Cipriani, dubbed Robin Hood for donating some of his winnings to charity, and wanted to offer cash for his charity gambling.
He took Cipriani up to a hotel room in Sydney and showed him the money.
“We went upstairs and he had a suitcase already just sitting there,” Cipriani told Rolling Stone.
“He goes, ‘Here, I’m gonna give you a million dollars.’ And I said, ‘Bro, you don’t even know me and you’re gonna give me a million dollars?’
“And he goes, ‘Yeah, but I heard a lot about you, I have a feeling.’ And I say, ‘But you understand that there’s a chance that I don’t win?’ He goes, ‘Look, I’ll tell you what, I believe in you so much …’ And he opens this cabinetry that literally was stacked with $50 bills in Australian dollars. No locks, no keys, nothing! He grabs some more and says, ‘I’m giving you a million and a half.’ ”
Hanson’s plan was for Cipriani to cash the drug money for casino chips and then cash out the winnings for a cheque. Cipriani would keep whatever he won for charity while Hanson took the rest.
In total, $US1.5 million ($A2.03 million) in drug-trafficking proceeds was pushed through The Star, which turned into a casino cheque and was then cashed in Las Vegas.
When they met up again at a Sydney resort, Hanson handed Cipriani a suitcase with $2.5 million in cash, which he was to take to the tables at The Star casino in Sydney. Cipriani quickly realised he was being used to launder money.
But when he tried to back out, the threats began.
“You have a beautiful wife,” Hanson told the gambler.
“You’re going to do this, you understand?” The inference was clear.
Cipriani then hatched a plan. He would lose the $2.5 million. But when Hanson learned of the losses he began relentlessly threatening the gambler to pay him back, threatening to slit his throat and using an ex-MMA fighter to intimidate Cipriani.
Eventually Cipriani, fearing for his life after being sent DVDs of beheadings and shown photos of graves, went to the FBI for help.
This led to the arrest of Hanson on a golf course in San Diego in 2015. Fifteen other members of his crew were also arrested.
When Hanson pleaded guilty in January, Assistant US Attorney Andrew Young told US District Court Judge Mitchell Dembin that the accused oversaw a drug distribution network of more than five individuals who imported, exported and distributed throughout the US, Australia and elsewhere hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, MDMA (ecstasy), metabolic steroids and human growth hormones, also known as HGH.
This week, in sentencing Hanson to 21 years in prison, US District Judge William Hayes expressed his bewilderment at his downfall.
“It is difficult to understand how you got here,” he said. “Other than greed.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Hanson was subjected to a court-mandated forfeiture of $5 million in cash and all of his property, valued up to $20 million.