NBC Execs Unaware of "Poker After Dark" Perv

It appears that while a low level producer for the show "Poker After Dark" may have known that one of its poker playing professionals had prior convictions for child molestation, top executives at NBC were otherwise kept in the dark regarding "Poker After Dark". 

This is especially embarrassing for NBC as this is the network that brings us the popular "To Catch a Predator", the series that lures pedophiles and other unsavory characters into "sting operations" then grills the perpetrators. 

The Globe, a nationally distributed print magazine, and Radar Online both ran stories this week on  how "Iron Sheik" Sharhram Sheikhan served 9 months on charges of child molestation.

Sheikhan's attorney immediately threatened both Gambling911.com and Tom Somach, a highly regarded journalist who occasionally contributes stories to such publications as The San Francisco Chronicle.  Somach also writes for a new upstart poker news site called PokerHelper.com, which not only first reported that Sheikhan's past improprieties may not have been the best match for an NBC television show, but also disclosed that US officials were attempting to have Sheikhan deported back to Iran.  The 38 year old poker professional has resided as a legal citizen in the US since the age of 9 but was born in Iran.

Immigration officials arrested Sheikhan at his Las Vegas home on Aug. 30, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

He was held for more than a week at the North Las Vegas Detention Center before being released on a $10,000 bond.

Federal authorities said at the time they were looking to deport Sheikhan because of a 1995 misdemeanor conviction in Contra Costa County, Calif.

"This individual was targeted for ICE arrest because of his criminal history," Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Las Vegas Review Journal. "ICE has an ongoing initiative called Operation Predator targeting individuals, including foreign nationals, who prey upon and sexually exploit children.

"We want to see him removed from the United States."

And that might soon happen, according to Gambling911.com sources speaking on anonymity. 

"Perverted Justice, which works with NBC's 'To Catch a Predator' is now actively investigating this matter," our source told us.

And just when you thought this story couldn't get any stranger....it just did.

A Las Vegas Sun piece by Ed Koch, published July 9, 1999, reveals that Sheikhan played a role in the accidental death of a 91-year old Las Vegas woman.

Somach uncovered the following:

“One of the two deaths attributed to the storm was the result of an auto accident just after 11 a.m., when a car hydroplaned in the northwest part of the valley. A Mercedes, driven by Las Vegan Shahram Sheikhan, 29, was traveling at speeds too fast for the slick road conditions on Buffalo Drive just north of Charleston Boulevard, Metro Police said. The Mercedes slid across the raised center median of southbound Buffalo and struck a Lincoln traveling in the northbound lanes, police said. The female passenger, 91-year-old Dorathy Ohriner of Las Vegas, died at the scene, the Clark County Coroner’s office said today. The Lincoln was driven by Neil Ohriner, 66, also of Las Vegas, police said Sheikhan and Mr. Ohriner were taken to University Medical Center with moderate injuries.”

Perverted Primates also said on its website that Sheikhan has a page on MySpace.com–a social networking site–and it has contacted the operators of MySpace.com to notify them of Sheikhan’s status as a child molester, so the page can be removed. MySpace.com and similar sites do not allow those convicted of sex crimes against children to have pages, because such pages can be used to contact minors.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com

Originally published January 31, 2008 8:18 pm EST