Mark Walter’s Dodgers purchase under new scrutiny after Pablo Torre report

An insurance company affiliated with Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter’s Guggenheim Partners loaned $350 million to a Walter-controlled LLC that owned SportsNet Los Angeles in 2014, one of several instances of apparent self-dealing detailed in an episode of the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast.

The podcast reported that several figures involved in the purchase of the Dodgers – including basketball legend and minority Dodgers owner Magic Johnson – and the engineering of their massive cable rights deal later landed influential and potentially lucrative positions at Guggenheim or with its affiliated holdings.

USA TODAY Sports has reached out to Guggenheim for comment.

EquiTrust, which was a Guggenheim Partners-owned insurance company, did not disclose that the $350 million loan was made to an affiliated partner, according to Hunterbrook Media, which shared its findings with Torre. Walter, the longtime CEO of Guggenheim Partners, is already the subject of multiple federal investigations into more than $21 billion in loans not disclosed to state insurance regulators that were made by two Delaware insurers Walter owns.

The 2014 loan, to Walter’s American Media Productions, LLC, came at a time the Dodgers’ $8.35 billion local TV contract with Time Warner was taking effect, a deal that…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/sports/