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Seemingly overlooked in Friday’s indictment of three major online poker rooms and several of its principals is that UB.com’s Scott Tom is not named among those facing the most serious counts of alleged criminal activity.
While Tom has been charged with Conspiracy to Violate the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA), that count only carries with it a maximum of five years prison time and $250,000 fine. Based on previous indictments and pleas, the odds of Tom getting off with a mere slap on the wrist are pretty good actually.
The most damning of the counts does NOT include the name Scott Tom. That would be Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud and Wire Fraud and Money Laundering Conspiracy. Those two counts carry a 30 year and 20 year sentence, respectively. Gambling911.com noted that Brent Beckley, another principal in UB.com, is indeed charged with those two counts.
The complaint primarily focuses on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, suggesting these two firms were responsible for concocting the plan to commit the aforementioned bank fraud in return for multi-million dollar investments.
From the indictment:
By late 2009, after U.S. banks and financial institutions detected and shut down multiple fraudulent bank accounts used by the Poker Companies, SCHEINBERG and BITAR developed a new processing strategy that would not involve lying to banks. PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and their payment processors persuaded the principals of a few small, local banks facing financial difficulties to engage in such processing in return for multi-million dollar investments in the banks.
UB.com has gone to great lengths in the last few years to distance itself from Scott Tom following a highly publicized “insider cheating” scandal featured on the CBS New Magazine 60 Minutes.
To its credit, UB.com refunded those it believed to be adversely affected by the cheating scandal.
Intermediaries for the online poker companies are charged on all counts.
- Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
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