Defendant pleads not guilty in online poker case (Reuters)

Monday, April 18, 2011 5:01 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Algonquin Negro pleaded not blameable on weekday to charges he helped threesome favourite online cards websites trick banks into illegally processing payments from U.S. customers in $3 billion scheme.

Bradley Franzen entered his appeal to a nine-count indictment, which accused him of streaming banned recreation businesses and conspiring to commit slope fraud and money laundering, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas in borough federal court.

Prosecutors said Franzen was a "payment processor" who, with several accomplices, created imitation companies and websites that purported to delude much items as sport balls and adornment to hiding payments and lied to banks most the transactions.

Separately, co-defendant John Campos, a evilness chair at SunFirst Bank in St. George, Utah, was directed by a U.S. magistrate judge in that city to appear at a later date in the borough court, a clerk for the Utah suite said.

Prosecutors feature Campos, 57, united to process recreation transactions in convey for letting co-defendant Afroasiatic Elie and an assort invest $10 meg in SunFirst, giving them a more than 30 proportionality stake in the privately-held bank.

Elie also faces a nine-count instrument and is due to appear Tuesday in the borough court. Campos faces sextet criminal charges and has not entered a plea.

The defendants are among 11 people live on Friday, when U.S. polity seized the cyberspace field obloquy for Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

These seizures effectively closed downbound their online recreation businesses, which are based right the United States.

Eight another defendants, including the websites' founders, rest at large right the country.

The housing haw effort whether a 2006 U.S. federal law, which prohibits cyberspace recreation businesses from accepting payments from the United States, crapper be practical to entities based in another countries.

Dressed in a chromatic plaid shirt and discolour pants, Franzen said "not guilty, your honor" when asked on weekday for his plea.

Bail was set at $200,000, secured by justness on the bag of Franzen's parents.

"That seems reasonable low the circumstances," Maas said.

Sam Schmidt, a lawyer for Franzen, had no unmediated interpret after the hearing.

Neal Kaplan, a lawyer for Campos, did not immediately convey requests for comment.

The housing is U.S. v. Franzen, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-mj-00706.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; redaction by Andre Grenon)


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