Despite facing multiple felony charges, Absolute Poker co-founder Scott Tom has negotiated a plea bargain deal to just one misdemeanor count of being an “accessory after the fact to the transmission of wagering funds” which carries, at most, a two-year jail term.
The agreement includes Tom’s forfeiture of “any and all property” gained by the illegal proceeds of the operation, but that’s going to be an interesting one to determine.
This development must be salt in the wounds of Absolute Poker and UltimateBet customers who were sold down the river in 2011 and are still out of pocket (see previous InfoPowa reports) six years on, despite encouraging news that the Garden City Group begun a compensation process for 1.2 million identified victims in April 2017.
Tom returned to the United States in March 2017 to face the federal charges against him after self-imposed exile in the Caribbean islands, where he was a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis but lived on Antigua. He was released at the time on $500,000 bond by a Manhattan Federal Court.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses will hand down sentencing on September 28, 2017 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.