neteller founder pleads guilty

[hogua]

[ QUOTE ]
Lefebre will enter a plea very soon. Note that the announced settlement with Lawrence provides for "joint and several" liability for payments.

One other thing of note. In court, the idiot Judge asked Lawrence if it was a condition of the deal that he cooperate with the government. Before Lawrence's lawyer or the prosecutor could jump up Lawrence said "yes."

[/ QUOTE ]

Many poker players used Neteller to move money to/from sites that offer both poker and sports betting (i.e. Bodog, Wsex, Mansion, etc). If a govt agency reviews the Neteller transactions of these people's accounts, there's no way for them to determine if the funds were used for poker, sports or both (or casino play for that matter).

This could be good or bad. I suspect that it will be bad in that any transctions made to these sites will be ASSUMED to be for (or could be for) sports betting.

[Skallagrim]

I am not gonna do anymore specutlating until I see actual Court documents.

But I did want to say, despite what the lower court judge may have said, that the WTO treaty is a treaty between governments that gives no specific rights to individuals. Although as only an acceptor of bets legal in his home country, Carruthers is in a slightly stronger position to raise the treaty issue, the neteller guys transferred money directly FROM america in direct violation of US law with respect to sportsbetting (and while you are right about the mixed sites hogua, there were quite a few sportsbetting only sites out there that they serviced) - as much as I hate to say it, that still looks like a pretty good reason to cop a plea to me [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] .

Skallagrim

[oldbookguy]

skallagrim you are so very correct, this is a sports betting case.
If you read the indictment it specifically lists bets on Football games made from the same account while the DoJ person was in Florida and New York.

Neteller Charges Filed Statement To Court
http://forum.tradesports.com/eve/for...2?r=7531088702

obg

[ QUOTE ]
I am not gonna do anymore specutlating until I see actual Court documents.

But I did want to say, despite what the lower court judge may have said, that the WTO treaty is a treaty between governments that gives no specific rights to individuals. Although as only an acceptor of bets legal in his home country, Carruthers is in a slightly stronger position to raise the treaty issue, the neteller guys transferred money directly FROM america in direct violation of US law with respect to sportsbetting (and while you are right about the mixed sites hogua, there were quite a few sportsbetting only sites out there that they serviced) - as much as I hate to say it, that still looks like a pretty good reason to cop a plea to me [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] .

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
This could be good or bad. I suspect that it will be bad in that any transctions made to these sites will be ASSUMED to be for (or could be for) sports betting.

[/ QUOTE ]

The DOJ can assume whatever it wants, since nobody is prosecuting individual bettors anyway. Exactly zero people anywhere in government (outside of, possibly, the state of Washington) care what you, an individual poker player, sports bettor, or backgammon hustler, do on the Internet as long as you pay your taxes.

[permafrost]

[ QUOTE ]

skallagrim you are so very correct, this is a sports betting case.
If you read the indictment it specifically lists bets on Football games made from the same account while the DoJ person was in Florida and New York.

[/ QUOTE ]

The complaint [it's not an indictment] says "law enforcement officers and a cooperating witness posed as gambling customers and conducted online monetary transactions with numerous online gambling businesses using online payment processing services provided by Neteller PLC. The following are examples..." then gives some football bets for the examples. I see a real possibility that they could have given other non-sports "examples".

[Vidocq]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lefebre will enter a plea very soon. Note that the announced settlement with Lawrence provides for "joint and several" liability for payments.

One other thing of note. In court, the idiot Judge asked Lawrence if it was a condition of the deal that he cooperate with the government. Before Lawrence's lawyer or the prosecutor could jump up Lawrence said "yes."

[/ QUOTE ]

When accepting pleas, federal judges are obligated to ask those kinds of questions, as well as many other questions you'd probably consider silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Asking whether the defendant understands the deal, whether he is on any medication, etc. is standard. Asking whether he has agreed to cooperate is not at all standard in my experience. It could get people killed.

[Wynton]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lefebre will enter a plea very soon. Note that the announced settlement with Lawrence provides for "joint and several" liability for payments.

One other thing of note. In court, the idiot Judge asked Lawrence if it was a condition of the deal that he cooperate with the government. Before Lawrence's lawyer or the prosecutor could jump up Lawrence said "yes."

[/ QUOTE ]

When accepting pleas, federal judges are obligated to ask those kinds of questions, as well as many other questions you'd probably consider silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Asking whether the defendant understands the deal, whether he is on any medication, etc. is standard. Asking whether he has agreed to cooperate is not at all standard in my experience. It could get people killed.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. If safety is a concern - which is certainly not always the case just because someone cooperates - then the judge can simply seal the minutes or other documents. Both at plea and sentencing, judges and parties routinely refer to cooperation agreements.

[Steve565]

<< Press Release
Update on US Situation Regarding Former Directors


Monday, 2 July 2007 - NETELLER Plc (LSE: NLR), the independent global online payments business, today issued the following statement regarding the announcement on Friday 29 June 2007 by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO) regarding Mr Stephen Lawrence and Mr John Lefebvre, two of the Company's former directors and founder shareholders.

According to the USAO announcement, Mr Lawrence has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in connection with his role in NETELLER's prior involvement in handling financial transactions between gambling customers in the United States and offshore internet gambling businesses. In relation to this charge, Mr Lawrence also admitted to allegations requiring him to forfeit at least US$ 100 million. The USAO further announced that the case against Mr Lefebvre is still pending.

Other than as shareholders, neither Mr Lawrence nor Mr Lefebvre has any current position with or connection to NETELLER.

NETELLER is continuing to cooperate with the investigation being conducted by the USAO, under the advice of its legal advisers and in accordance with court orders in the Isle of Man. As announced on 4 June 2007, the Company is in discussions with the USAO for the purpose of resolving the investigation and has advised the USAO that it will use its best efforts to resolve the investigation no later than 13 July 2007. The Company does not currently believe that these developments will delay its efforts to resolve the investigation by that date. >>

[oldbookguy]

That hopefully is good news. We shall see.

obg

[PokeReader]

The Neteller founders and Neteller as a company were actusally guilty of money laundering on it face, so of course they were going to plead. This is the real problem that will further squeeze payment processors. It is a federal crime to it any way process payments to limit to amount of finanicial information that would general be present. In this case, the reason they had individual liability even though they were not working for the company anymore is that they had set up an ACH and another financial processing company which Neteller would essential wash gaming money through, as well as using their corporate account in New York. The two of them still owned these two companies, and this is why they had to plea without question.

UIGEA now requires payment processors to break the very strict anti-money laundering laws in place in the U.S., and frankly I am surprised there is not more of a problem yet. Wait until the next tier goes down, and players start getting pulled in on tax evasion and FBAR violations, (which can have up to a 10 sentence with a 500K fine), not to mention that to the federal goverment every player who makes a peer-to-peer transfer becomes a financial institution and must list this on their Form TD F 90-22.1 with their FBAR's. There is a four part test for gaining leniecy if you were determined to have a unwilling violation of FBAR, and most poker players will fail. If you past this test your FBAR fine will be only 5-10% of the maximum in your Neteller/other similar accounts during the year, but this is much better than the maximum penalty. The deadline for filing is today, no extension available. Be sure to have good tax advice, folks.