Absolute Poker Founder Pleads Guilty in U.S. Online Fraud Case
The latest twist in the Black Friday indictment occured yesterday as Absolute Poker founder Brent Beckley pleaded guilty to accepting illegal online bets and deceiving banks to process payments.
A second individual implicated in the Black Friday shutdowns by the DOJ has pleaded guilty in a US court.
Brent Beckley, who was named in the original indictment by the US federal government and one of the people behind Absolute Poker, stood trial in Manhattan yesterday and admitted to knowingly taking illegal online bets.
During the trial Beckley confessed to offences ranging from accepting illegal bets and bank fraud, stating: “I knew that it was illegal to accept credit cards from players to gamble on the Internet. I knew that it was illegal to deceive the banks in this way.”
Prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office stated that Beckley was directly involved in deceiving banks, as well as passing off gambling transactions as non-related purchases such as pet supplies and flower products.
Following his admission of guilt Beckley now faces a custodial sentence of 12-18 months behind bars; a far cry from the original sentence of 35 years cited in the original indictment brought by Bharara. Beckley’s sentence will be set on April 19th.
Two Sides of the Indictment
The state of play following the original lawsuit on April 15th 2011 has taken two distinct routes. Beckley, along with Bradley Franzen have decided to face the situation head-on and surrender. Franzen originally surrendered back in April and pleaded not guilty to "tricking" banks into processing gambling payments. He since went on to pleased guilty for his part in the case.
In contrast, John Campos – Vice Chairman of SunFirst Bank - and Chad Elie – a payment processor -have decided to fight the case. On September 30th the pair filed separate motions asking for their names to be dismissed from the charges being brought against them.
One of their main arguments being that the sites in question only offered poker and as such cannot be clearly defined as “gambling businesses”. Moreover, they have argued that poker is a game of skill rather than luck.
The Indictment
Cited in the original indictment were the following names: Isai Scheinberg, Raymond Bitar, Scott Tom, Brent Beckley, Nelson Burtnick, Paul Tate, Ryan Lang, Bradley Franzen, Ira Rubin, Chad Elie and John Campos.
In addition to Beckley, Franzen, Campos and Elie, only Ira Rubin has appeared in court to face charges.
This latest development is just the latest move in a case where the DOJ are seeking a minimum of $3 billion in penalties and forfeitures from the Absolute Poker, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and UB.com. Indeed, quite what this guilty plea will mean for the future of the other indicted individuals remains to be seen.
