August 5, 2009 (CAP Newswire) — The volatile state of online gambling in the United States, vaguely known to be illegal but with hard-to-understand applications, has claimed three more victims. Tom Cascone, local restaurateur in the Kansas City area, and two other men have been jailed for refusing to talk to a grand jury about gambling operations in their city.
Last month, the three were summoned to a federal grand jury in connection to an FBI investigation focusing on online gambling operations operating in the Kansas City area. Refusing to testify, the three men were cited for contempt of court and jailed.
The case is connected to a March raided on several Kansas City homes as part of a larger online gambling investigation. But, according to local news sources, Cascone's home was not among those raided, and he has not been formally charged of any criminal activity. He is being asked to provide information about other local figures involved in online gambling activity, which he so far is refusing to do.
Jimmy Cascone, the uncle of the jailed man, wondered to Kansas City’s KMBC-TV why the federal government was going through such trouble about online gaming: "In this day and age … they're going after internet gambling, which is a gray area," he said.
According to Poker News Daily, iMEGA’s Chairman Joe Brennan has stated that his case is not connected to larger federal online gambling cases, such as the recent seizure of $33 million in online poker funds.
Read the KMBC-TV story here; click here to read Poker News Daily’s write-up.