During the height of his UFC career, Chael Sonnen pleaded guilty to money laundering.
In June 2011, Sonnen pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to mortgage fraud. Sonnen is a licensed realtor in his home state of Oregon. In 2006, he got a mortgage company to give a plumbing company owned by his mother almost $70,000 to do repairs on a home, even though he knew those repairs would never be done.
After to agreeing to testify against other people involved in the investigation, Sonnen avoided jail time. Sonnen was instead put on two-years probation and was fined $10,000.
At this point of his career, Sonnen was coming off of his impressive performance against former UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. In 2010, Sonnen dominated Silva for the first four rounds of their fight. It appeared Sonnen was going to end Silva’s legendary title reign, but in the fifth round Silva managed to submit Sonnen and retained his title.
