Full Tilt Poker Executive Pleads Guilty to Criminal Charges
01/10/12 09:14 Filed in: Poker | Poker News
The worst of the Black Friday legal indictments may be over for many companies, but for some of the key players in the debacle the real implications of the scandal may have just begun. 41 year old Nelson Burtnick, the former payment processing director for Full Tilt Poker, has just plead guilty to charges of conspiracy related to his company's seizure by American authorities last year.
Burtnick, a Canadian citizen who lived in Dublin, Ireland while working for Full Tilt, was one of the eleven indicted by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice on Black Friday. He was charged with "conspiracy to deceive U.S. financial institutions" and, last month, turned himself in to authorities to stand trial for his alleged crimes. At a hearing in the U.S. Federal District Court last Wednesday, Burtnick plead guilty to his charges, admitting that he and other Full Tilt employees had fraudulently processed e-cheques, miscoded credit card transactions and hidden gambling funding transfers through third-party payment processors. These illegal actions were taken in an effort to hide billions of dollars of Full Tilt Poker transactions from the U.S. government and avoid running afoul of American anti-Internet gambling laws.
Nelson Burtnick testified that, even though he "knew what [he] did was wrong" he "had to do this type of deception to enable U.S. poker players to load their accounts with funds." Burtnick's sentencing will take place on 19th December, 2012 and could result in a punishment of up to 15 years in prison.
Burtnick, a Canadian citizen who lived in Dublin, Ireland while working for Full Tilt, was one of the eleven indicted by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice on Black Friday. He was charged with "conspiracy to deceive U.S. financial institutions" and, last month, turned himself in to authorities to stand trial for his alleged crimes. At a hearing in the U.S. Federal District Court last Wednesday, Burtnick plead guilty to his charges, admitting that he and other Full Tilt employees had fraudulently processed e-cheques, miscoded credit card transactions and hidden gambling funding transfers through third-party payment processors. These illegal actions were taken in an effort to hide billions of dollars of Full Tilt Poker transactions from the U.S. government and avoid running afoul of American anti-Internet gambling laws.
Nelson Burtnick testified that, even though he "knew what [he] did was wrong" he "had to do this type of deception to enable U.S. poker players to load their accounts with funds." Burtnick's sentencing will take place on 19th December, 2012 and could result in a punishment of up to 15 years in prison.
