If he's coming back now, he's probably got a deal for probation or very little jail time.

He has until mid-August to stay in Antigua, so he doesn't have to bail so quickly if he's not happy with the deal being offered.

I am most interested to see the terms of the probation.

Will it involve shutting down SWCpoker?

Will it involve staying away from all casinos?

Will it involve a promise to not work for or own any online poker site?

How big will the fine be?

Pretty sure that Chesnoff attacked the case using the following:

1) Servers for Seals were not run from Nevada
2) Micon had no access to the money flowing in and out of Seals (if hdev from earlier in this thread is to be believed)
3) Micon was a paid promoter who masqueraded as owner in order to give customers more confidence in the product
4) Bitcoin, not money, was being gambled

So then the burden of proof is on the government to prove that Micon really owned it, and they may lack that, even though they might have stuff on his computer which would indicate the was much more involved than just a promoter.

I think the government's case might have its biggest weakness in that Micon had no access to the server running it and had no access to the money/bitcoin.

While abrown has pointed out that the statute makes it a crime to materially participate in running an illegal gambling site, the case becomes much weaker if they can't prosecute Micon as an owner.

So perhaps Laxalt realized that a jury might not want to convict Micon, when his defense team could prove that he had no access to the servers or the bitcoin flowing in and out. Also, a jury may be less likely to convict Micon for providing means to gamble bitcoin than they would if he was running a real money gambling site.

I also don't believe they will re-arrest Micon for SWCpoker when he gets here, or pull some dirty trick like that. High profile attorneys have a professional relationship with prosecutors, to where they basically treat each other with respect, even as adversaries. This is because they frequently have to deal with one another and negotiate, and it becomes impossible to negotiate with someone who pulls dirty tricks on you. So basically they handle matters with each other as straight shooters. It's not like what you see on TV, where the prosecution or defense presents a shocking piece of evidence or surprise witness and completely blindsides the other in court. If they were going to re-arrest Micon for SWCpoker the second he gets to Nevada, Chesnoff would be told about this in advance.