Bitar released on bail
Family posts bail, including US$280,000 in cash - Judge Lewis Kaplan recuses self from remainder of Full Tilt CEO's trial.
Full Tilt Poker chief executive Ray Bitar has been released on bail, although he will continue to be monitored electronically by the federal government after returning to his California home.
Judge Paul Englemayer had noted last week that the final decision on the granting of bail should lie with Judge Lewis Kaplan, however – in line with similar previous cases over which he has presided – Kaplan has recused himself from proceedings on the grounds that he spent 20 years with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison LLP, the law firm representing Bitar.
Consequently, Englemayer signed off on the bail package, having last week agreed with magistrate judge Debra Freeman that it could be granted. According to poker news site Diamond Flush Poker no new judge has been selected for the case, and no date given for Bitar’s next court appearance.
The US government had over the weekend sought to deny the CEO bail, deeming him a flight risk, however he was released after spending the weekend in custody as his family posted the full US$2.5m bond including US$280,000 in cash and $715,000 in secured property. Forbes reports that the remainder of the $2.5m is covered by a warehouse owned by Bitar.
He will now return to California for the first time since early 2011, having postponed a visit in the months preceding Black Friday, when he was indicted on several counts including money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business. In a memorandum calling for his pre-trial detention, US Attorney Preet Bharara and prosecutor Arlo Devlin Brown suggested “Bitar concluded for several reasons that an indictment might be imminent.”
Last week saw the unsealing of a superseding indictment against Bitar and Full Tilt’s head of payments Nelson Burtnick, in which three new charges of wire fraud against players were brought against the former chief executive upon his return to US soil. Bitar has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
It is unclear what impact Kaplan’s decision to recuse himself will have on Bitar’s sentence, which could theoretically reach a maximum of 145 years. The judge accused the government of “walking away from the prosecution” upon its acceptance of the plea deal from payment processor John Campos, the only Black Friday indictee to be sentenced so far, although he eventually accepted the former banker’s guilty plea to a single misdemeanour charge.
Kaplan also recommended an “upward departure” in the sentencing of Absolute Poker director of payments Brent Beckley, potentially leading to more than the recommended 18 months in prison, however Pokerfuse reports that Devlin-Brown has called for a more lenient sentence for Beckley, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges last December.
Devlin-Brown, writing on behalf of Bharara, notes that “There is no evidence that Beckley intended to cause ultimate financial losses to banks, and no banks have identified for the Government actual losses attributable to Absolute Poker processing.” Beckley is likely to be sentenced by September.