https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanv...ederal-agents/
For some reason, this is barely being reported outside of Forbes.
He's been released on $1 million bail, and this has been negotiated for a few months. It is almost certain a plea deal has already been offered and accepted, similar to when Scott Tom surrendered.
I should also mention that the US started extradition proceedings in late 2019, which is probably what pushed this to happen. However, this surrender was not a result of extradition.
Disgraced payment processor/thief Daniel Tzvetkoff has been ordered to appear in court: https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/mt...vetkoff-et-al/
Interesting.
god bless that fucking guy...got me an assload of money back from full tilt, which he didn't have to do...
True.Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis
While this wasn't a selfless act (he was paying to settle the matter between Pokerstars and the government), you can give him credit for running Pokerstars responsibly to the point where they had the money to both pay all the US players AND make this $750m deal, plus continue operating normally.
If there was no Pokerstars, or if Pokerstars was run like Full Tilt or UB, you would have gotten zero point zero back.
I also know a few people who worked at Stars during his time there, and they all said he was extremely nice to his employees and very loyal to them.
He ran a first class company despite all the nonsense. Reading that article just made me sad remembering how good it was. I hope he has an absolutely sweetheart deal.
I have become more pro-Isai has the years went on.
At one point, I was very angry at Pokerstars for their Black Friday FPP redemption shenanigans, which robbed me of $2k. I'm still pissed about that, but overall I think positively of the guy. At the time, nobody except for me and a few others cared about this Superman-3-esque FPP ripoff because Pokerstars was the only one of the three busted sites to actually pay people. So they basically got pats on the back or not stealing our money. I still stand by my criticisms there. However, it's also possible that the FPP debacle was the work of managers working under Isai, and he didn't even fully understand what was going on.
But Isai did have a lot of positives, and those can't be ignored:
- He was the pioneer of online poker tournament. Online poker existed before Pokerstars, but they were the first major site to have tournaments, and were also the first major site to have great, efficient, bug-free software.
- By all accounts, he treated his employees very well.
- He loved poker, and wanted to preserve the purity of poker on his site. While he could have made extra money by introducing jackpots, carnival games, and casino games to Pokerstars, he chose not to. He wanted Pokerstars about pure poker, and he gave up extra profits to keep to that vision.
- He ran a high quality operation which fueled the online poker boom. This also helped other smaller sites get action. Online poker overall was much, much better and more active thanks to Isai Scheinberg.
I am personally a lot more wealthy today thanks to the actions of Isai Scheinberg. I think that many people on this site can say that.
Overall, he was excellent for poker, and in general seems to be a decent guy. Hats off to him.
In April 2011, Ray Bitar found himself charged with five counts of bank fraud, money laundering, and other online gambling offenses. He faced a maximum prison sentence of 65 years.
Bitar eventually took a plea bargain in 2013, pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud in violation of the UIGEA. He also agreed to forfeit $40 million from 18 bank accounts and surrender ownership in several homes, commercial properties in California, Indiana, and Bermuda.
Plus he forfeited ownership and/or equity interest in 23 separate businesses connected to Full Tilt and nine other business entities not connected to Full Tilt.
In exchange, Ray Bitar was able to stay out of prison.
Under the federal sentencing guidelines, Ray Bitar should have gotten at least five years in prison.
Ray Bitar had a serious heart condition.
He was on the transplant list in California.
If he is still alive, can the U.S. government change their mind and put him back in prison along with Howard Lederer?
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