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Sports betting expert accused of failing to pay contractor, lawsuit alleges

Posted at 4:19 PM, Apr 24, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-24 21:59:10-04

NOBLESVILLE — Sports betting expert and writer Christopher Price is facing new accusations, this time in a Hamilton County court.

Records show Vahid Aidun of Noblesville hired Christopher Lee Price as a contractor to fix roof and water damage.

Aidun paid Price $4,668.97 to do the work, and Price hired a subcontractor to conduct repairs inside the garage, records show.

According to a lawsuit filed against Price on April 15, Price failed to pay the subcontractor, and Aidun had to shell out $2,705 to pay the subcontractor.

Aidun is seeking $2,705 plus 2.5% interest from Price from the date of Nov. 11, 2018. A hearing is scheduled for May 28 in Hamilton Superior Court 4.

Call 6 Investigates left a message for Price, who lives in Carmel, but we have not yet heard back.

As RTV6 previously reported, Price was arrested in 2016 on numerous outstanding felony warrants, after more than a year of evading arrest.

Price had offered gambling advice on the Dan Dakich show on 1070 The Fan and has also written numerous articles about sports betting.

He has been charged in Marion County and Hamilton Counties with intimidation, harassment, theft, fraud on a financial institution and possession of a controlled substance.

Records show Price has not served any time in state prison, and he’s served a handful of days in both the Marion and Hamilton county jails in 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Price's incarceration dates are as follows:

  • 3/29/18 –4/11/18- Marion County
  • 3/23/18 – 3/29/18- Hamilton County
  • 2/23/17 – 3/01/17- Hamilton County
  • 6/24/16 – 6/24/16- Hamilton County
  • 4/28/16 – 6/24/16- Marion County
  • 4/3/14 – 4/18/14- Marion County
  • 3/10/14 – 3/16/14- Marion County
  • 5/08/12 – 5/09/12- Hamilton County
  • 4/21/12 – 4/21/12- Hamilton County
  • 12/21/11 – 12/21/11- Hamilton County

In March 2018 Price was charged in Hamilton County with fraud on a financial institution, check deception, and forgery with the intent to defraud. Prosecutors later dismissed those charges against Price in October 2018.

In February 2015, Price was charged with theft and fraud of a financial institution in Hamilton County for executing a scheme to obtain money by posing as a worker with Renew Services.

In March 2017, Price pleaded guilty to theft and a Hamilton County judge sentenced Price to electronic monitoring and a year of probation, as well as restitution totaling $9,922. Records show in that case, the court found Price violated his probation four different times and declared Price as indigent.

A fact-finding hearing is scheduled in the 2015 criminal case for June 27, 2019.

Greg Rakestraw, program director for 1070 The Fan, and host Dan Dakich said Price called into the show several times during football season to offer gambling advice to listeners but was never employed by the radio station.

“Once we found out about his felony warrants, we stopped using him,” Rakestraw said.

In a 2012 criminal case, prosecutors said Price raped his ex-girlfriend and threatened to send sexual videos and pictures to her friends, the Carmel school where she worked, and to an amateur porn site.

In an interview with police, Price denied raping the woman but admitted to putting a pillow over her face and told her that he was going to send the videos and pictures to her workplace.

“Yeah, I’m a [expletive],” Price told the police.

Police found Price used multiple phones to harass the woman, and posed as a female friend of Price.

He was charged with intimidation and harassment, but court records show Price failed to appear in court in June 2014 and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was convicted of intimidation, and as part of a plea agreement, the harassment charge was dismissed.

In the intimidation case, Price was cited numerous times for violating his probation—in 2014, 2016 and again in 2018.

Dakich said in an RTV6 interview previously, they stopped using Price, also known as 59 Theorem, when they heard about Price’s felony warrants.

“He was good at what he did, but we stopped using him,” said Dakich.