Magic Johnson celebrated Mark Walter’s purchase of the Lakers. He called him “my business partner and friend” and praised him as “the best choice” to carry on the franchise’s legacy. That friendship and business relationship now sits at the center of a federal investigation that reaches directly into the company responsible for the bulk of Johnson’s own fortune.

According to a new report from Pablo Torre, in collaboration with Hunterbrook Media, Johnson’s life insurer EquiTrust backed both a Magic Johnson-linked investment fund and a Dodgers television company. It reported both positions as “unaffiliated” even though the connections run directly back to Johnson himself and his longtime business partner.

EquiTrust’s current parent company is now tied to the same federal probe examining Mark Walter’s broader business empire. Federal prosecutors and the SEC are examining whether Walter or the companies he controls improperly failed to disclose that billions of dollars in insurance money were loaned to other Walter-controlled businesses, according to The Wall Street Journal.

TWG Global, Walter’s holding company, has maintained that it “acted in good faith” throughout. EquiTrust is central to that inquiry because of its history, as Magic Johnson purchased a controlling stake in the insurer from Guggenheim Partners in 2015, the same investment firm co-founded and run by Walter, while Guggenheim continued managing EquiTrust’s investment portfolio even after the sale.

Forbes attributes the majority of Johnson’s estimated net worth directly to his ownership of EquiTrust. It made any scrutiny of the insurer’s practices a direct financial concern for Johnson, regardless of his own involvement in wrongdoing.

What the New Documents Actually Show

Torre and Hunterbrook’s review of EquiTrust’s annual statements, insurance filings and SEC records revealed two specific positions the insurer classified as “unaffiliated” despite clear ties to Johnson’s own network.

The first is a $100.5 million investment in JLC Fund I, an infrastructure investment vehicle co-founded by Johnson and Eric Holoman, his longtime business partner and, notably, EquiTrust’s own CEO.

SEC filings show JLC Fund I’s first capital raise closed on July 27, 2017. Just one week later, EquiTrust, then still owned by Johnson, invested in that same fund.

The second position identified was $350 million in debt tied to the Dodgers’ television company. Another asset connected to Walter’s ownership group, in which Johnson himself also holds a minority stake.

The EquiTrust findings extend a federal probe that’s already implicated Walter’s broader insurance holdings. Including Delaware Life and Clear Spring Life and Annuity, both of which received grand jury subpoenas earlier this year over roughly $16 billion in loans tied to related-party transactions.

FBI agents seized Walter’s phone and laptop during a search last September. The investigation has since grown to touch nearly every corner of Walter’s business empire, from his ownership of the Dodgers and, until recently, the Lakers, to Chelsea FC and his various insurance holdings.