In breaking news from New York, Intabill head Daniel Tzvetkoff has been released on bail, according to the Courier-Mail newspaper in Australia. In April, he was arrested in Las Vegas on charges money laundering, gambling conspiracy, and bank fraud as part of his role with the internet gaming payment processor.
According to the Aussie news outlet, “The young Gold Coast entrepreneur was set free after a closed hearing before a federal magistrate.” He filed a plea in the case in late August in the legal action brought on by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The news broke on the same day in which former Full Tilt Poker employee Jason “JDN” Newitt allegedly was subpoenaed to appear the Southern District of New York. The nature of his subpoena is not known, but may be related to his lawsuit against his former employer.
Much of the Southern District’s energy in the internet gambling industry has been focused on payment processors, who provide the financial link between online poker players and online poker sites. Tzvetkoff was originally denied bail in New York, according to the Courier-Mail, because a U.S. judge “feared he had hidden money to finance an escape from the U.S. once free.” The newspaper added that a trial is set for June 2011.
Last year, word broke that Kolyma Corporation AVV had filed a $52 million lawsuit against Intabill. The total purportedly consisted of $25 million owed to Full Tilt and PokerStars and $30 million owed to the CEREUS Network sites UB.com and Absolute Poker. The lawsuit was filed in Australia and, at one point, it was reported that Intabill took in as much as $1 million per day.
According to a Dow Jones Newswire report in April, rather than report what his financial transactions were for, Tzvetkoff told the bank they represented “repayments of short-term loans, transfer of funds to prepaid debit cards, and e-commerce purchases.” He was rumored to have owned a house in Sin City and was merely visiting. However, the trip and his past transgressions may cost him up to 75 years behind bars. The 27 year-old filed for bankruptcy in January following credit card charge back issues and the deteriorating global economy.
In another development on the legal front, the Courier-Mail notes that Douglas Rennick, a Canadian who ran into legal trouble for his role with the payment processor Account Services, will be sentenced this month. Account Services was linked to both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The U.S. Government seized Account Services’ funds last year and, in July 2009, the company filed a motion for return of property. The Poker Players Alliance filed an amicus brief in the case, but Rennick was promptly indicted in August of last year.
On Newitt’s rumored appearance in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, posters on TwoPlusTwo were up in arms as to what the development could mean for the industry. According to TwoPlusTwo poster “Kevmath” and This Week in Poker, Newitt’s presence was due to “miscoded transactions taking place right after the UIGEA.”
Poker Players Alliance New Hampshire State Director Patrick “Skallagrim” Fleming opined on TwoPlusTwo, “This could just be an action against a processor and FTP may not be the target at all. Or they could be trying to tie FTP into some processor’s alleged violations by any number of possible theories of accomplice or conspiracy. Or all my guesses may be wrong.”
There was no mention of a trip to the Southern District on Newitt’s Twitter feed. Tuesday saw him take his car over 5,000 miles on the way home from Chipotle and trade away Arian Foster in fantasy football. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest legislative and legal headlines.
