I don't know if this is an April Fools joke or not, but today former BetOnSports CEO, David Carruthers,
pleaded guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charges.
This news is definitely a surprise. I'm still digesting the information right now.
This timing is confusing... it's almost as if our backwards friend,
U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway, is using this as some sort of odd response to the
European Commission's report this week, stating that America's stance against online gambling was contradicting WTO agreements.
Either way, as the news indicates, it looks like Carruthers agreed to a bargain that will see the prosecution recommend a 33-month sentence.
Seeing as he has been in jail since the summer of 2006, that sentence sounds an awful lot like "time served" to me, and is definitely a far cry from the "20 years in prison and/or fines up to $250,000" which Hanaway claims in
her own self-serving release.
I am also amused and infuriated by Hanaway's description of BetOnSports as a "racketeering conspiracy that resulted in a loss of between $7 million and $20 million and involved more than 250 victims".
Excuse me?
The only reason those people didn't get paid was because the American government interceded and seized everything. What a load of crap.
Here. Let me give a more accurate description of the situation...
St. Louis, MO - Today former BetOnSports CEO, David Carruthers, pleaded guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charges. Due to a plea agreement, in return for future cooperation, the prosecutuion will recommend a sentence of 33 months. Mr. Curruthers has already been under house arrest since 2006.
Carruthers was a British citizen working for a publicly traded UK company, BetOnSports, and yet he was still arrested and prosecuted in America for participating in a business that is considered legal in most of the free world.
Because of his arrest, BetOnSports, a once-thriving company, was forced to close operations and was unable to pay off the accounts of many innocent users due to the legal situation.
The US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Missouri spent untold sums of taxpayer dollars harassing and prosecuting Mr. Carruthers, in the hopes of attaining a lengthy conviction. The fact that he is likely to be sentenced to little more than time served is an embarassment to all attorneys involved.
This situation likely reflects little more than the District's desire to wrap up this matter before America gets forced by WTO regulations to open up the online gambling market, which would make further prosecution of Mr. Curruthers difficult, if not impossible.
God Bless America.