One would not normally consider the day one is handed down a sentence for a crime to be a good one, but for Bryan Micon, it may actually be welcome, as it might allow him to start bringing closure to what has been a tough year. The SealswithClubs founder, who was charged with the illegal operation of a gambling site in Nevada in April, has been sentenced to a maximum of two years probation.
The saga dates back to February when SealswithClubs, an online poker site that only accepted Bitcoin as payment, mysteriously experienced more than a week of downtime, followed by permanent closure. Micon revealed via a video he posted on YouTube that on the morning of February 11th, Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) agents and armed law enforcement officers raided his home and confiscated computers and other electronics. Micon himself was led out of his house, handcuffed and in his underwear. He was not arrested at the time. In the video, he announced that he was moving to Antigua, a move had already been in the works, but that he felt necessary to speed up based upon what happened:
After I was led out in handcuffs in my underwear, it was pretty clear that it was proper to leave sooner rather than later. I didn’t really want my two-year old daughter, who I love very much, to grow up in a police state where creativity is often met with guns and handcuffs and what-not and that’s just not the environment that I think is proper for my daughter to grow up in.
In April, the state charged him with operating an unlicensed interactive gaming system, which could have resulted in Micon spending as much as ten years in prison and paying as much as a $50,000 fine. He originally planned to fight the charges, but in June returned to Nevada to plead guilty to lesser charges in an attempt to avoid jail time.
Under that plea deal, Micon agreed to plead guilty to the misdemeanor version of the felony charge, accept and undetermined amount of probation, and pay a $25,000 fine. He also agreed to surrender items that were seized in the initial raid, including electronic equipment, $900 cash, and 3.0996 Bitcoins, which is currently worth about $1,500.
Micon has now been officially sentenced, the highlight of which is a maximum of two years’ probation, thus allowing him to avoid spending time behind bars. District Court Judge Kerry Earley could have sentenced him to an additional year, but agreed with is attorney, Richard Schonfeld, that he responded to the charges properly and thus did not punish him further. Micon will remain in Nevada until his probation is over, upon which time he plans to return to Antigua, where he opened Bitcoin poker site SwCPoker.eu after closing SealswithClubs.
