In case you missed the news over the last few days, Black Friday defendant Ira Rubin (pictured), an online poker payment processor, was sentenced to three years behind bars, which is more than double the punishment handed down to Absolute Poker co-founder Brent Beckley last week. According to Bloomberg, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told Rubin, "You are an unreformed conman and fraudster. A significant sentence is necessary to protect the community."The U.S. Government and Rubin's attorney sought a penalty of 18 to 24 months, according to Bloomberg, but "U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said such a sentence wouldn't serve to discourage future crime." Bloomberg added, "Once he is out of prison, one of the conditions of Rubin's release will be that he cannot participate in any business occupation related to payment processing or financial services."
In the original Black Friday indictments, unsealed on April 15 of last year, Rubin and the other payment processors targeted allegedly "lied to banks about the nature of the financial transactions they were processing and covered up those lies, by, among other things, creating phony corporations and websites to disguise payments to the poker companies." Rubin was picked up in Guatemala trying to fly to Thailand two weeks after Black Friday and was instead redirected to Miami. He was also denied bail and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
Rubin is from Costa Rica and was charged with conspiracy to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), violating the UIGEA, operating an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. His three-year sentence is the longest handed down as a result of the Black Friday indictments so far.According to the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, Kaplan "said he had little doubt that Rubin would emerge from prison one day 'trying to cook up some new scheme that in all likelihood will be illegal.'" Rubin has already served 15 months behind bars.
On why Kaplan was so harsh in his assessment of Rubin, the Journal explained, "The Government said Rubin had faced criminal charges in New York, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, Florida, and Virginia since the 1970s and had not yet paid an $8 million Federal Trade Commission judgment against him because of a payment processing business he operated from 2003 to 2006 that was tied to telemarketing fraud."
And in terms of the $5 million Rubin now owes, the Journal conceded that the U.S. Government could have a hard time collecting, as he "tried to stash some of his money in Costa Rica by giving gold bars to an acquaintance who does not want to part with them and he had transferred $2 million to accounts in Costa Rica." Rubin is 54 years old.
Also last week, Beckley (pictured) received 14 months in prison for his role at Absolute Poker, which, like Full Tilt Poker and Absolute's sister site UB have not yet paid back players worldwide. Beckley conceded at his court hearing, "I knew it was illegal to accept credit cards from players to gamble on the internet… I knew it was illegal to deceive the banks… I fooled myself into thinking that what I was doing was okay."Kaplan commented on Beckley's 14-month sentence by saying, "The sentence has to make clear that the Government of the United States means business in these types of cases."
Several posters on PocketFives argued that Beckley's 14-month sentence was insufficient, including one member of the online poker community who said, "14 months? Made 10s of millions just to spend 14 months in jail. Sounds like good pay to me. Sign me up."
Another poster agreed: "Steal hundreds of millions and a 'severe' punishment is one guy doing 14 months. Fucking joke. The winners in this situation are the owners of UB/AP, who will enjoy the rest of their lives with all of our money, and the U.S. Government, who stole a few million."
Stay tuned to PocketFives for the latest legal updates from the world of poker.
