High-risk Secret Poker World Leads to Hollywood Hills Murder

Emil Lahaziel knows how to bluff.

On Instagram, he is behind the steering wheel of the Rolls-Royce convertible. “Flying high,” he wrote in the caption of the photo taken on a private plane.

It doesn’t matter, based on financial disclosures in the divorce case, or admitting to the wife that people want to kill him seven-figure debts Lahaziel owed in his home country Israel, “because of certain activities he does outside the country, people want to kill him.”

So it makes sense that Lahaziel’s last night of his life plays poker.

In the early morning of June 7, 2023, he went to the hillside mansion rented by a social media influencer. When guests arrived at Fareholm Drive, a valet parked the car, which twisted above Hollywood. In the three-story house, a chef prepares a meal ready to put down a “high-bet” bet on the poker table, and the detective testifies.

Lahaziel, 39, walked out to meet someone he thought was a friend at 2 a.m. The masked and hooded man shot Rahazir in the face, leaving Israeli nationals dead on the stairs of the fashionable White House.

“This is an execution,” Los Angeles County prosecutor said at a recent hearing.

Lahaziel’s motive for being killed remains a mystery, but his death led to the Los Angeles Police Department investigating a tour of a high-priced poker game.

The games, hosted by Encino, Sherman Oaks and The Hollywood Hills, bring together strange people, according to the search warrant affidavit. Israeli organized criminal figures and Latino gang members played cards with equipment from Johns. The organizers hired chefs, bartenders and women who provided what the prosecutor called “companionship.”

The crowd even includes a former NBA All-Star, according to an undisclosed indictment last week. Gilbert Arenas, who brought the gun into the Washington Wizards’ locker room during a 2009 gambling dispute with his teammates, pleaded not guilty to the charges he hosted an illegal poker game at Encino Home. His attorney did not return the request for comment.

When local police and federal agents raided the arena’s house in 2022, they found a poker party “in full swing,” the search warrant affidavit said. A DEA plane captured footage of guests escaping from the backyard above her head, with a man pouring into the pool. Thirty-six men were detained, and more than a dozen women with “provocative clothes” were also said.

It is completely legal to organize poker games in California as long as the host does not cut the bonus. But authorities say mature criminals turned poker games into illegal businesses, not only collecting “rakes” from the pot, but also expanding high loans and blackmail players that can’t afford the losses.

According to the search warrant affidavit, the investigation in the arena began when a desperate person sought the help of LAPD. He claimed he lost $1.2 million in playing cards.

He told police that when he stopped paying, the Israeli mob committed the kidnapping of his child and threw grenades into his home.

The man who owed $1.2 million explained to LAPD how the game works. Buys are usually $15,000. Instead of exchanging cash, most players play on something called a tag, ending what he won or lost in the late night.

In addition to poker, the parties involved “also have women, alcohol, drugs and guns.”

He told LAPD that he lost the entire $1.2 million in one night. The man, on a four-story Hollywood hill with floor-to-ceiling windows called the “Glass House”, said he noticed the landlord making a weird bet. He counted the cards and believed that two Aces were missing on the deck.

The man began to shine. He thought if he lost, he might accuse the host of cheating and refusing to pay the mark. His losses reached $1.2 million.

He told police he did not pay to go to Israel. There, he met some men who said that if he paid about $600,000, his debt would be forgiven. When a detective asked if the person who called the meeting was from the Musley group (a notorious mafia group), he replied: “No comment.”

“The Muslim criminal group is one of the largest and most violent organized crime groups in Israel,” a detective wrote in the affidavit. “They are known for their involvement in murder, car explosions and rackets all over the world.”

After the man returned to the United States, he said he was threatened by Yevgeni Gershman. Gershman, a resident of Woodland Hills, immigrated from Israel in 2021, where he was convicted of conspiracy to murder and drug trafficking, the detective wrote in his affidavit.

The man claimed there was more: Gershman held a poker game at his home in the arena.

Arenas stood out at Grant High School in Van Nuys, continuing to play for the University of Arizona before being selected by the Golden State Warriors in 2001.

He played for the Washington Wizards until 2010. That year, he was suspended for 50 games due to a locker room gun incident, which he said was due to a dispute with his teammates while playing poker in the team. He was responsible for carrying an unlicensed gun for felony and played his last NBA game in 2012.

Former Washington Wizards player Gilbert Arenas attended the ceremony at the half-time of the NBA basketball game in Washington on Friday, November 18, 2022.

(Nick Gass/AP)

The second gambler who owes Gershman Money tells LAPD about the arena. The man claimed the former All-Star didn’t play games at his home because he “lost all his money.” Instead, Arenas rented the house to Gershman and his partners for $2,000 a night.

The man told LAPD that he was originally a “chip runner.” He paid bonuses and distribution tips to chefs, card dealers, bartenders, and what he called “poker girls.” He claimed that those women had to come up with 25% of the tricks to Gershman.

He told LAPD that the landlord charges $200 per pot. Players who don’t know about the “house” must buy chips and cash at the end of the game. Regular customers call on the mark for a week to pay for the money they owe.

The man said he went from working at the Olympics to playing four nights a week. He estimates that he loses $40,000 a week. To pay the debt interest of $1,500 a day, he borrowed it from his parents and friends.

He claimed he received a $150,000 loan from Gershman, and he charged him $7,500 a month in interest. He said he paid Gershman interest but never touched the principal.

LAPD provided a search warrant for Arenas’ home in July 2022 with statements from two debt-filled gamblers. They watched guests arrive at Gable Drive, overlooking the winding hillside road in the San Fernando Valley. At around 11:30 pm, the DEA SWAT team swept.

Prosecutors didn’t collect the Arena until last week, Gusman and his so-called conspirators’ charges. Gershman’s attorney Scott Pactor contacted for comment: “God forbids men from having hobbies.”

“This is a prosecution that makes J. Edgar Hoover proud,” he added. “When was the last time the federal government broke the card game? The 1920s?”

Released on the next day with $50,000 bonds, appeared on a live broadcast the next day and claimed he didn’t know much about his co-defendant, saying he didn’t speak much English.

“I’m laughing,” he said, before having a conversation with the co-defendant. “I don’t know your name. What’s your name? Igor? Yes, let me write it down.”

Lahaziel moved to Los Angeles a few months before his death in Hollywood Hills.

Back in Hallandale, Florida, he left behind a failed marriage and curious financial situation. When his wife filed for divorce, Rahazir reported owed $1.5 million from the Israeli bankruptcy case. Still, the couple owns four houses and a yacht together.

In the divorce petition, his wife claimed that Rahazir told her: “Some people want to kill him because of certain activities he has done in the country.”

A friend told LAPD that Rahazier moved to Los Angeles and broke into the vape industry. He lives in the Wollywood Hotel as he began hanging around Ricardo Corral in Det. Dave Vinton of LAPD testified at a preliminary hearing last month.

These two are unlikely. Lahaziel wore a Givenchy shirt and skinny jeans. On Instagram, he showed off his lifestyle of private jets, Rolls-Royce and Richard Miller watches.

Corral, then 29 years old, wearing a loose hoodie and baseball cap. Vinton testified that he was a member of the dough Pacoma gang nicknamed “Beast” and that he had to borrow her Honda Civic. Rough tattoos on his neck ink, horseshoe shape and the word “La Vida Ruina” – Life in Ruins.

Ricardo Corral pleaded not guilty to the murder of Emil Lahaziel, in an undated photo of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)

Court records show Corral attacked three prison terms for beating police officers, using guns as felons and shootings.

LAPD detective testified that Coral said he met Rahazir on Hollywood Avenue and sold a small amount of cocaine to Rahazir and his friends. Eventually, Vinton testified that Coral began raising funds for Rahazir. The detective didn’t say much money.

Vinton testified that Lahaziel’s last night of his life participated in a poker game hosted by Tony Toutouni. Toutouni was crowned as “King of Instagram” in the 2018 Daily Mirror Tabble article, fostering the image of a playboy, posting photos of herself surrounded by half-naked women and a bunch of cash.

Toutouni declined to comment in The Times.

Winton testified that two men pulled to the Fareholm Drive house in a Dodge truck that was stolen earlier that night in Sylmar. Both men wore masks and hooded sweatshirts, but using phone records, Vinton identified them as Corral and Jose Martinez Sanchez, then 31 years old.

Get off the car in the corral. Winton testified that when he chatted with Lahaziel, Martinez turned the truck and parked it in their direction.

Rahazir returned to the house. Security cameras show him walking to the balcony overlooking the sleeping, glittering city, holding a phone to his ears.

According to Vinton, Coral asked the valet to obtain Rahazir. As he walked out of the house, prosecutors were in charge, shooting Corral in the face and neck.

Surveillance cameras did not capture the shooting, but they did show a hooded gunman running up the stairs and pointing at the pistol on the escaped valet. Winton testified that Martinez drove to the freebie they parked a few blocks away.

About a month later, Coral and Martinez were arrested. At a preliminary hearing in July, their attorneys asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter to dismiss the murder.

Martinez’s lawyer argued that there was no evidence that his client knew someone would be killed while driving to Hollywood Hills. Corral’s lawyer said the evidence showed that his client was the masked and masked gunman seen in the camera “dispersed and indirect.”

“Where there is smoke, there is not always a fire,” said lawyer Joseph Shemaria.

Hunter is unpopular, ruling that she has seen enough evidence for both to stand trial.

The motive for Rahazir’s death is not yet known. Vinton testified that there was no indication that he was targeting the robbery. Toutouni told detectives that Lahaziel lost money in the game.

Once, Shemaria asked Vinton about a friend of Lahaziel. The man told detectives he left the game before the shooting because he didn’t like Lahaziel’s card game.

“Does this make sense?” Shemaria asked.

Winton turned to the lawyer and died: “A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me.”