Absolute Poker's Beckley sentenced to 14 months
Judge Lewis Kaplan accepts prosecutors' recommendation for a lenient sentence.
Absolute Poker director of payments Brent Beckley has been sentenced to 14 months in prison after pleading guilty in December to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and to violate UIGEA.
The US Department of Justice argued for leniency in Beckley’s sentencing earlier this month due to his wilful cooperation with US authorities, as well as no specific financial institutions identifying losses as a result of Absolute Poker’s payment processing.
District Judge Lewis Kaplan had questioned the leniency of the sentencing guidelines in May, but yesterday chose to accept the prosecutors’ recommendation of a 12 to 18 month sentence, the forfeiture of US$300,000 and a fine up to $30,000.
Beckley had been expected to face trial in April, then early July, but sentencing was postponed until yesterday as attorney Mark Harris requested an adjournment once Kaplan said he would argue for a longer sentence.
Kaplan also gave SunFirst Bank vice president John Campos a three month sentence in June for his role in processing payments for online poker companies.
Full Tilt Poker Raymond Bitar surrendered to US authorities earlier this month, pleaded not guilty to all charges and is currently on bail awaiting a hearing date.
Four other payment processors have entered into plea deals as part of the Black Friday indictments with Chad Elie, Ryan Lang, Ira Rubin and Bradley Franzen all awaiting sentencing.
At the end of June Payment processor John Campos became the first of the 11 Black Friday indictees to receive a prison term, with Judge Kaplan sentencing him to three months in prison.
Campos was also been sentenced to three months’ probation and barred for life from serving as a director or officer of a bank, following the involvement of SunFirst Bank “ which he part-owned “ in processing online gambling payments.
The 59-year-old had pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanour charge in March, 11 months after being indicted on six counts including violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and money laundering conspiracy.
Judge Kaplan had initially queried the US government’s acceptance of his plea deal, asking why it was “walking away from the case”, but eventually accepted it on 20 April.
In the original Black Friday civil complaint Campos was accused of agreeing to process online poker payments for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker “in return for a $10m investment in SunFirst by [fellow indictee Chad] Elie and Elie’s partner, which would give [them] more than 30% ownership of the bank.” SunFirst Bank entered receivership last November.