Tzvetkoff to testify in Black Friday case
Payment processor is believed to have been in witness protection programme.
Australian payment processor Daniel Tzvetkoff is set to testify against those indicted on Black Friday in a court hearing in New York on 9 April.
American indictees John Campos and Chad Elie will be the first to appear before the Manhattan court with Melbourne native Tzvetkoff is expected to “come out of hiding” to testify, according to newspaper The Australian.
The former Intabill owner, who processed payments for Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker before his arrest in 2010, is understood to be in a witness protection programme in New York, according to earlier reports from various publications including the Sydney Morning Herald.
His arrest, on charges including money laundering, followed allegations from the three poker operators that he owed them tens of millions of dollars. Tzvetkoff and Intabill processed in excess of US$1bn for the three companies whose principals were named in the Black Friday indictments along with Elie and Campos.
Both defendants have now submitted their final motions in limine ahead of April’s hearing, while US authorities have also submitted their final motion.
Earlier motions from the defendants had been denied by Judge Lewis Kaplan, while last month saw Elie and Campos request a presentation to jury.
The memorandum in support of the latest motion from Elie calls for the preclusion of “evidence relating to alleged theft and PartyGaming”, addressing an alleged $4m theft from PokerStars which Elie’s lawyers “ from New York firm Kramer Levin “ argue is “not evidence of the charged conspiracies”.
The PartyGaming reference concerns the named operator’s withdrawal from the US market following the enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), with the lawyers stating that this withdrawal “is not relevant to any of the issues in this case.
“By introducing this evidence in trial, the government would only be inviting the jury to assume that the poker companies that elected to follow suit were acting in violation of the law,” the motion continues. It argues that “Because there is substantial risk that the jury would use the information for just this purpose, any conceivable probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice to Mr Elie.
It also notes that there is no reference to discussions with Elie about PartyGaming in those documents supplied to Kramer Levin by the US government.
Meanwhile the government’s motion asserts that Curtis Pope, an individual with ties to the payday loan industry, “Introduced Elie to [Daniel Tzvetkoff] as someone who had connections to numerous banks and who could use his club business as a cover for internet gambling transactions.”
It provides further details of Elie’s discussions with a US-based representative of Intabill, and the payment processor’s alleged $4m theft from PokerStars, claiming that it was this [eventually resolved] dispute which saw Elie introduce the operator to SunFirst Bank, then part-owned by Campos.
Also named by the government in connection with this theft is Jeremy Johnson, the Utah-based businessman accused last month of attempting to “hide” some $51.4m in funds tied to online poker activities. Johnson was not named in the Black Friday indictments.
Meanwhile a number of the defendants, including Full Tilt board members Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar and Rafe Furst, have been given until 14 May to respond to the amended civil complaint. Of the trio, only Bitar was named in the initial indictment.