Two Black Friday Indictees Plead Guilty

Absolute Poker’s Brent Buckley and payment processor Ira Rubin admits the charges

On Jan. 16 and 17, two Black Friday indictees, Absolute Poker co-founder Brent Buckley (31) and payment processor Ira Rubin (53) pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.

On that occasion before the US District Court in Manhattan, Buckley acknowledged that he knew he was breaking the law when he arranged for U.S. banks to process internet gambling financial transactions and that accepting credit cards so as to enable customers to gamble online was illegal.

For this plea, he could get 12-18 months of prison time. The sentencing is scheduled to be decided on April 19 this year, and his prospects so far don’t look too bright as prosecutors keep claiming that he participated in tricking U.S. banks into processing billions of dollars of gambling transactions by disguising the money as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants.

As for Rubin, who stands accused of helping process payments for online gambling businesses indicted on Black Friday, he also pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a Manhattan federal court only a day after Buckley.

The prison sentence he may face will range from 18 to 24 months under federal sentencing guidelines. Accused of helping process payments for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, Rubin pleaded guilty to three out of nine counts against him, which include conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud.

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