US District Judge Lewis Kaplan shuffled up and dealt a sentence of 14 months imprisonment yesterday to 32 year old Brent Beckley, part owner and head of payment processing at Absolute Poker. AP is one of three of the internet’s largest real money online poker sites whose domain names were seized last year after their owners/employees were brought up on criminal charges of unlawful internet poker activities and bank fraud.
The ruling came down Monday after months of court proceedings that began back in December of 2011. Beckley pled guilty to conspiring to break United States laws in regards to illegal online poker, as well as conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud.
Beckley told Judge Kaplan, “I fooled myself into thinking that what I was doing was okay.” He admitted that he deceived banks in regards to the processing of funds used for illegal online poker.
The judge could have been a lot more lenient on AP’s former head of payment processing. After all, he did surrender to authorities and cooperated fully with the investigation, pleading guilty to the charges before him. However, the district judge made it obvious that Beckley’s case had to be used as an example to other real money online poker companies out there, foreshadowing that the United States government implemented the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2066 (UIGEA) for a reason, and the stringency of its laws are not to be taken lightly.
“The sentence has to make clear that the government of the Unites States means business in these types of cases,” Judge Kaplan said.
Brent Beckley is just one of 11 people named in the US government’s indictment again Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, which were, at the time, the three largest websites providing online poker for real money to players in various parts of the world, including the United States.
Only a few short weeks ago, Raymond Bitar, Chief Executive of Full Tilt Poker, also surrender himself to authorities after flying in from the company’s headquarters in Ireland. Unlike Beckley, Bitar chose to plead not guilty to the charges against him, which include illegal online gambling, bank fraud, wire fraud, player fraud and a host of other criminal accusations.
Bitar’s case is a bit different because, according to reports, Full Tilt Poker promised to pay back all of the funds owed to its former US players, but instead paid off its shareholders first, leaving the company without nearly enough funds to make good on its promise to its American clients. Raymond Bitar is currently free on a $2.5 million bail package that saw him released from prison earlier this month and returned to his residence in California where he now wears a charming little ankle bracelet, as per federal observation requirements.
Judge Kaplan will not be overseeing Bitar’s case, however. Kaplan excused himself from the proceedings when Raymond appointed a lawyer from the firm of Paul Weiss, the same firm that Kaplan once worked for. Bitar’s case will be overseen by Federal Judge Paul Englemayer of Manhattan.