Another defendant in the “Black Friday” indictments from the U. S. Department of Justice has had his day in court, where he – as many in the case have – pled guilty to several violations of U. S. gaming laws.
Former Full Tilt Poker payment processor Nelson Burtnick, who surrendered to federal authorities in July upon arriving in New York, was in the court of Judge Gabriel Gorenstein on Thursday to face the multitude of charges that he faced in connection with the April 2011 indictments from federal authorities. Instead of pushing the issue to trial, Burtnick decided to plead guilty during yesterday’s hearing, admitting that he did indeed violate U. S. laws in processing payments for Full Tilt Poker and another site charged in the 2011 case, PokerStars.
“We had to do this type of deception to enable U. S. poker players to load their accounts” with funds, Burtnick told Judge Gorenstein according to Bloomberg Business Week in issuing his guilty plea. “I know that what I did was wrong.” Part of the charges Burtnick faced were bank fraud, where the payment processors knowingly used deceptive practices to ensure that U. S. player money deposits and withdrawals would transfer through the banking system, which was barred from accepting gambling action with the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.
Gorenstein accepted the guilty plea from Burtnick and set a date of December 19 that he would be sentenced for his offenses by U. S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. If the maximum sentence is handed out, Burtnick faces up to 15 years in jail, but it isn’t expected that he will receive that length of time behind bars, according to prosecutors, if he continues to cooperate with their ongoing investigation.
Burtnick is the latest of the original eleven men who were indicted in the “Black Friday” case who have succumbed to federal pressure and pled guilty for their offenses. Previously, Ira Rubin, Chad Elie, John Campos, Ryan Lang, Brent Beckley and Bradley Franzen have pled guilty to the host of charges they faced. The previous defendants have all received significant fines for the actions they took with the online poker outlets they represented and three received prison sentences. Campos was handed down a three month stint, while Beckley (fourteen months) and Rubin (three years) were handed stiffer sentences.
Of the original eleven men charged in April 2011, only three – alleged Absolute Poker owner Scott Tom, PokerStars owner Isai Scheinberg and PokerStars executive Paul Tate – have yet to feel the long arm of the U. S. legal system. Scheinberg might never face a U. S. courtroom following last month’s settlement of PokerStars’ charges with the U. S. government (although he allegedly had to give up operation of the company), but Tom and Tate’s fate is as of yet undetermined.
The final case that has yet to come to trial is that of former Full Tilt Poker Chief Executive Officer Ray Bitar. As a part of the settlement of the case against Full Tilt, Bitar turned himself in to federal authorities in July. In a court hearing after his surrender, Bitar pled not guilty to the charges that face him and he is currently awaiting trial under house arrest.
Bitar, along with Full Tilt Poker board members Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst, also are facing civil complaints brought by the federal government. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice issued a second amended complaint which focused on the properties of Lederer and Bitar in a pre-emptive action to seize property that the two had obtained through alleged illegal payments from Full Tilt Poker. In that amended action, over $100 million is being sought for repayment to the U. S. government, with property such as homes, vehicles and investment accounts being targeted.
