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Read Full BioA Midland, Texas man is facing a first-degree felony for allegedly stealing $683,000 from his employer to pay gambling debts.
Jason Matthew Babb, 48, had been the former controller of Slater Controls Inc., an oil-field equipment company, since 2021 until his termination in June. His job included handling accounting, money, and filing and paying taxes, according to the arrest affidavit.
He now faces a first-degree felony charge of theft exceeding $300,000.
Babb Stole up to $20,000 at a Time Every Couple of Days
Slater Controls was able to track the theft back to January 2022, discovering that Babb had made multiple transactions withdrawing company funds. The company initially estimated that the amount stolen was $663,000. However, a forensic third-party audit revealed that the sum was $683,364.50.
The company became aware of the stolen money on March 24. The CEO and President met with Babb in his office and interviewed him about their findings. They recorded the conversation, where the perpetrator admitted to the theft, stating it was to feed his gambling problem.
On April 23, a Midland County Sheriff’s Office deputy and a Texas Ranger interviewed Babb and his attorney. Babb told them he would take small amounts at first and win the money back. However, he would end up in deeper debt, necessitating the need for more money.
He allegedly set up to $20,000 at a time every couple of days, sometimes every few weeks. Babb would conceal the theft by labeling it as an expense for purchasing equipment. He would use an ACH wire transfer to move money from one account to another.
Babb told the deputies that he didn’t know that “some amounts here and some amounts there” would add up to so much.”
Currently, he’s out of jail on a $500,000 bond.
When Gambling Debts Drive Desperate Crimes
Babb’s arrest is only the latest reminder that problem gambling can tip otherwise ordinary people into extraordinary wrongdoing.
A recent high-profile case involved MLB star Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara. Mizuhara admitted to stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani to cover about $40 million in gambling debts to an illegal California bookmaker.
In February, a district judge sentenced Mizuhara to 57 months in jail, followed by three years of supervised release. US District Judge Holcomb called the theft “shockingly high.”
The illegal bookmaker in question, Matthew Bowyer, has also been linked to regulatory investigations that led to significant fines for Las Vegas casinos—$10.5 million for Resorts World and $8.5 million for MGM Resorts, issued by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
In another shocking case from China, a Xinjiang province man tried to sell a thousand-year-old shroud to pay off his gambling debts.
The unnamed man had fallen into approximately $28,000 of debt. He attempted to alleviate the situation by seeking a buyer for the relic online. Unfortunately for him, the police intervened.
Even celebrities are not immune. In 2010, at the peak of his popularity, K-pop Star Shin Jung-hwan was arrested in the Philippines, accused of amassing huge gambling-related debts.
Jung-hwan initially claimed he traveled to the Philippines for tourism and was unable to return to Korea due to illness. However, he later confessed that his gambling habit became all-consuming, so that sometimes he “stayed at casinos for three days straight, without sleeping.”
Upon his return to South Korea, he was arrested and spent six months in prison, and his career never recovered. Recently, he stated he eyes a TV comeback.
