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Former online poker billionaire, Anurag Dikshit, was sentence to one year of probation and no jail time on Thursday, for violating U.S. Laws when operating his site PartyGaming in the U.S. He plead guilty to one count of violating the federal wire act in 2008 and agreed to forfeit $300 million. As part of his original plea deal he agreed to cooperate in ongoing investigation with federal prosecution on the condition that he would not face any jail time.
"I came to believe there was a high probability it was in violation of U.S. laws," Dikshit said of his work at PartyGaming during the court hearing when he pleaded guilty in 2008. He was the one who reached out to federal prosecutors in the US to initiate the negotiations that resulted in his plea deal and at the time, the move was seem to be an important victory for the Department of Justice. To some it seemed that the Justice Department was prepared for a long drawn out battle to take out industry leaders but nothing much ever came of it.
During Thursday's hearing Judge Rakoff said that he wondered why there have been no other prosecutions, specifically mentioning Dikshit's fellow PartyGaming co-founders. "Nobody else has been indicted," said Judge Rakoff. "It has been two years since this defendant began cooperating, what's going on?"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Arlo Devlin-Brown defended the Justice Department's actions saying that investigations were ongoing. "There are challenges in this prosecution," he said. "It has been two years and there are reasons."
Since 2008, Dikshit has sold all of his shares in PartyGaming. He has promised continued cooperation with the government, and has agreed to help the court in any potential future trail so letting him off without jail time was really a no brainer. There is no way of knowing what the Justice Department has planned next but it's likely Dikshit will be instrumental in making a case against other operators in the U.S.
As always, stay tuned to Casinofan for more news and updates.
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