BOS / DOJ Newsupdates Wed July 26

BetOnSports Fired CEO, David Carruthers, Wont Be Moved To Texas For Weeks Says His Attorney Tim Evans


July 26, 2006

EOG was very fortunate to contact David Carruther's attorney this morning just before he was flying out to see another client later today.

We spoke with David Carruther's attorney this morning, Tim Evans, about the Betonsports indictments involving his client.

Tim was very candid and stated, "I have never been involved in any online gambling case before. This is the first one."

When asked about a time frame as to when his client, David Carruthers will be transferred from Texas to Missouri, Evans replied, " This is not going to take days, but weeks!" He explained that it is quite normal for our legal system to take this lengthy time period before moving an inmate out of Texas.

When asked if BetonSports would still indemnify Carruthers in light of them firing him yesterday, Evans refused to comment.

Finally, Evans did admit to speaking with Carruthers' wife just yesterday as well as Melinda Sarafa from the powerful law firm of Zuckerman & Spaeder. He said, I have known Melinda for many, many years."

To conclude, when asked if Carruthers would be seeking legal counsel from Missouri, Evans responded, "We are definitely going to hire St. Louis Counsel!"

If convicted of all charges, Carruthers could be spending up to twenty years in prison.


Any comments or feedback about this article can be made here...

-- Ken Weitzner (The Shrink)

im surprised texas isnt trying to strap him in the electric chair lol
but seriously thanks for the update

I think the article was suppose to read :

BetOnSports Fired CEO, David Carruthers, Wont Be Moved To Missouri For Weeks Says His Attorney Tim Evans

what is england and the wto doing to get him out of this bullshit jam? any thoughts

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=17721&hed=Net+Gambling+Weaves+Wide+Web

Net Gambling Spins Wide Web
With the U.S. government targeting ‘facilitators’ such as banks, can tech startups be far behind?
July 26, 2006
Unlike the combatants in the vaunted “concept” wars such as the war on terror and the war on drugs, the enemy in the U.S. war on online gambling hides in plain sight, and the United States is employing a potent concoction of decades-old laws to win a digital-age fight.
The government used violations of the Travel Act, the Wire Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, along with charges of tax evasion and conspiracy, to indict seven individuals affiliated in some way with BETonSPORTS, a London-based online gambling firm (see Feds Deal Web Gambling Blow).
In an age when software can determine who is betting and whether that person is underage or a problem gambler, executives of multibillion-dollar online gambling operations can be hauled in for driving a bus with an Internet gambling poster across state lines.
David Carruthers, the former chief executive of BETonSPORTS, was arrested 10 days ago while in transit between the United Kingdom and Costa Rica.

Four other indictments involved marketing companies that did some work for BETonSPORTS.
“BETonSPORTS was probably targeted because of the high volume of business it did in the U.S., and because the CEO promoted online gambling on his visits to the U.S.,” said Larry Gaydos, a partner in the antitrust practice group at Haynes and Boone. “They knew of Mr. Carruthers’ travel plans so they were able to plan ahead and make the arrest.
Cutting the Supply Line
The war on online gambling is being waged exclusively against the suppliers rather than the bettors, in part because of the nature of the Internet.
“The new bill tries to make it more difficult for people to participate in online gambling, but they are not going after the bettors themselves,” said Mr. Gaydos.
“It would be very difficult to go after bettors,” he said. “With Internet gambling, people are sitting in the privacy of their homes so going after them will be a futile exercise.”
U.S. law makes a hard distinction between the legal exposure of the bettor versus the facilitator. If someone receives money for assisting in the placement of bets, he or she can be prosecuted.
Where does that leave small companies that develop software or systems that facilitate gambling? Perhaps the software or systems were not designed specifically to facilitate gambling. They were instead a horizontal application that facilitates financial settlements.
New York State, for instance, has been very aggressive in targeting online gambling “facilitators.” State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer reached a settlement with Citibank and PayPal regarding their involvement with online gaming.
State Jurisdiction
The question frequently asked about whether online gambling is legal in the U.S. is moot for the most part. It is legal in some states and illegal in others. Gambling within individual states falls within the jurisdiction of each state.
“But an online gambling firm in a state where it’s legal could be guilty of a crime if the bettor is in a state where that activity is illegal,” said Mr. Gaydos. “The Internet stretches the limits of the law.”
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed legislation that updates the Wire Act, a 1961 statute that made it a felony to use wire communications facilities to transmit bets.
The Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act makes the Internet the latest addition to the list of “wire communications facilities” specified in the Wire Act.
The new measure also increases the maximum penalty for violations of the Wire Act from two to five years in prison and preserves the rights of states to regulate intrastate gambling—gambling that occurs within the borders of a state.
Contact the writer: CMedford@RedHerring.com

We al know that TOW is very unreliable but this was an article that mentioned a post at TheRX.com...there no validity to this info!!!!


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="98%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left>TOW News </TD></TR><TR><TH vAlign=top align=left><!-- Article Title / Date -->7/24/2006
BETonSPORTS clerks tell customers "We are opening today"

</TH></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left><!-- Article Contents--><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left><!-- Article Content -->

BETonSPORTS has yet to release an official statement but customers calling the sportsbook for information are being told the Web site will open today. Meanwhile all Web properties are now pointed to BETonSPORTS.com.
Tens of thousands of BETonSPORTS wait on a word from the company. BETonSPORTS suspended its operations last Wednesday. The company has not accepted bets, processed payouts or accepted deposits since Wednesday last week.
Easybets.com, the BETonSPORTS Web site primarily catering the Asian market, remained open for business; however they reportedly discontinued catering North American customers.
Meanwhile the several urls of the group facing the U.S. market like betmill.com (Millennium), bettherock.com (Gibraltar) and mvpsportsbook.com are now re-pointed to the main url, BETonSPORTS.com.
"I just spoke to two people and they both said Millennium will be back up & running tomorrow sometime & that the company is merging everything into one whatever that means." a BETonSPORTS customer reported last night on the popular gambling posting forum therx.com. "They said there will be big changes though. I asked if they will still be taking wagers from Americans and the response was, gulp, "I think so." He said the sportsbook & poker room should be functional by tomorrow."
"Clerks and Managers alike seem that this is the case, spoke with several last night. They all had a positive attitude toward the whole situation." reported another BETonSPORTS customer on the same posting board.
TheOnlineWire.com has been unable to verify the authenticity of these information as posted by the above mentioned customers of BETonSPORTS. The company Web site is still non operational and information published Wednesday on the home page is unchanged.
The weekend has gone by with all sorts of unconfirmed rumors circulating within the gaming community but no official statement from the company. Management lips remain sealed while clerks reportedly tell customers of an imminent re-opening.
Costa Rica sources reported Saturday that employees were expecting to receive news about the fate of the Company today.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://www.theonlinewire.com/articleView.aspx?ID=1134
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=780 bgColor=#ffffff border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5></TD><TD vAlign=top width=615>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD vAlign=top align=left>BETonSPORTS Case Narrows Odds on U.S. Gaming Law </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left colSpan=2>By Reuters </TD></TR><TR><TD align=left colSpan=2>As the BETonSPORTS CEO prepares for a U.S. court hearing on Friday, his arrest on tax evasion and racketeering charges has narrowed the odds that an anti-gaming bill, once thought a long shot, could become law.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
David Carruthers, the UK company's chief executive, was arrested last Sunday at Dallas airport, less than a week after the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to crack down on Internet gambling, which could now pass to the Senate within weeks.
Two days earlier he had told Reuters he was confident of success in his long-running campaign to defeat the bill and believed it would not get through the Senate.
Now he is in a U.S. jail, $1 billion has been knocked off the market value of Web gambling stocks, and the bill's defeat in the Senate is no longer a foregone conclusion.
<!-- Vignette V6 Wed Jul 26 14:15:50 2006 --><!--WEB 11--><!-- RELATED LINKS -->
"Basically, this is a very good PR stunt," said consultant Warwick Bartlett at Britain's Global Gaming and Betting Consultants. "The charge sheet (for BETonSPORTS) looks awful and could well influence a lot of those who have to vote on the next bill."
"And I don't think there's any danger that George Bush won't sign this off," he added.
Though sector leader PartyGaming's Canadian CEO Mitch Garber told Reuters it was just "a little bit of noise that won't have an impact one way or the other", others said the indictment had dirtied the sector's name.
"If they can portray online gambling as full of crooks, then that will reinforce the need for regulation," said Clive Hawkswood of the London-based Remote Gambling Association.
"Given the mood, that is more likely to be prohibition rather than legitimisation," he added.
Republican Bob Goodlatte, one of the bill's sponsors, has stressed the moral reasons for banning Web gaming, as part of the party's emphasis on moral values as congressional elections approach.
ECONOMIC CASE
Dr David Croson at the SMU Cox School of Business in Texas says the legislators could also be swung by an economic argument for anti-Web-gaming legislation.
"The U.S. collectively loses anywhere from $4 billion to $9 billion a year to overseas companies due to online gambling," he told Reuters. "We might as well be shipping it over in briefcases."
"Congress thinks that making cash transfers to (online) casinos illegal will do the equivalent of creating 100,000 jobs with a stroke of a pen," he added.
Warwick Bartlett said the end-game for many U.S. opponents to Web gaming is to boost their own industry, which has missed out on the boom—companies like Harrah's and Las Vegas Sands.
"I think once the U.S. has killed off the offshore gambling enterprises targeting the U.S., they will legitimise online gambling in the U.S. and favour their domestic suppliers," he said. Copyright Reuters 2006.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1994578,00.asp