I understand there’s a couple of porn executives that, as investors, have reasons to sweat these indictments.
from www.telegraph.co.uk – Chad Elie, the Las Vegas businessman who married a former Playboy playmate the day after being arrested in a US online gambling bust, has been released on $250,000 (£152,000) bail after pleading not guilty to all charges.
The 31-year old was arrested in Nevada last Friday in a US crackdown against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. He is one of 11 men charged in the indictment.
Mr Elie’s release on Friday, in time to wed Destiny Davis, was conditional on his appearance in a New York court on Tuesday on nine charges, including bank fraud. He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
Mr Elie was named in the indictment as a “highly compensated ‘payment processor'”. He was released on a $250,000 bond secured against $50,000 cash and three signatories, including that of his new wife.
Another defendant Bradley Franzen, 41, has been released on a $200,000 bond secured against his parents’ home, as long as he does not travel outside New York, New Jersey or Chicago.
John Campos, 57, the vice-chairman and part owner of SunFirst Bank, was arrested in Utah and bailed on a $25,000 appearance bond. He must attend a hearing in New York.
The US is still seeking to arrest PokerStars’ founder Isai Scheinberg, Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom and Full Tilt’s Raymond Bitar.
On Wednesday, the authorities restored the “.com” domain names to Poker Stars and Full Tilt to expedite the refund of “money that US players entrusted to them”.
Back story: William Cowden, the lawyer for Chad Elie of Las Vegas arrested in a prosecution aimed at shutting down the three largest Internet poker companies operating in the United States contested bank fraud conspiracy charges Tuesday by saying his client never lied to a bank.
Cowden made the comment outside court after his client pleaded not guilty and was released on $250,000 bail. He said Mr. Elie intends to “aggressively defend” against charges that he and 10 others conspired to persuade banks to process billions of dollars in illegal Internet revenues. Mr. Elie had appeared in federal court in Las Vegas last week and was making his first appearance in the Manhattan court where the case will be prosecuted.
The 31-year-old Elie and others are accused of tricking banks into processing Internet poker transactions. Authorities said Elie persuaded a Utah bank operator to process transactions in return for a $10 million investment in the bank. An allegation denied by the bank’s attorney.
A law enacted in the US in 2006 makes it a crime for gambling businesses to knowingly accept most forms of payment in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling. Mr. Cowden said his client “never lied to a bank.”
The prosecution is aimed at shutting down the U.S. operations of three companies based overseas: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. The indictment seeks $3 billion in money laundering penalties and forfeiture from the defendants.
At one point during Elie’s 10-minute court appearance, attorney Cowden handed a prosecutor a small box containing what he said was a 500 gigabyte hard drive.
Magistrate Judge Frank Maas said he’d never before seen a defense lawyer hand over a piece of evidence at such an early stage of court proceedings.
Outside court, Cowden said he didn’t want to waste any time getting the case to trial.
He said his client, who left court with his wife, didn’t want to speak about the case. The bail package calls for Elie to post $50,000 in cash by next week as collateral.
So far, three of the 11 people charged in the case have been arrested. All are free on bail after pleading not guilty.