Tuesday, September 11 marked a second amended complaint from the US Department of Justice on its claim that defendants in the Black Friday civil case violated the 1961 Travel Act.
The 51-year old “Travel Act” is a federal statute that bars the use of the mail or “any facility in interstate or foreign commerce” to distribute the proceeds from certain criminal acts, including those related to “any business enterprise involving gambling”.
Looks like there are a few States included in the union that follow this law: California, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and more. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York actually filed the civil complaint seeking judgments against Full Tilt “Insiders” including Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst.
The DOJ is now going after financial assets the owners received from the Full Tilt business and the main complaint from the DOJ is that it can all be traceable to an illegal online gambling business.
According to the DOJ, almost $444 million was distributed to the 23 owners of Full Tilt Poker that also included millions of dollars in real estate, expensive cars and money located in retirement accounts.
Seems the major issue was that there were no funds to cover the paying of players after millions of dollars were given out to the directors and shareholders. This is why the DOJ is claiming fraud and thus calls the now defunct Full Tilt operation a “global ponzi scheme.”
What do you think? Is this a second Black Friday, or not such a big deal? Let us know in the comments below!