First Guilty Plea in US Online Poker Indictments

The first guilty plea was accepted yesterday at a Manhattan District Court from the first defended out of the eleven indicated last month by the US Departments of Justice on charges of bank fraud, money laundering and violation of anti-gambling laws.

The federal indictments were part of the Black Friday events that saw the FBI seizing the dot.com domains of three of the biggest online poker rooms illegally accepting US players' for real money games and processing their payments in violation of US federal laws.

The first person to accept a guilty plea is Bradley Franzen of Illinois and Costa Rica who admitted assisting online poker operators to bypass laws banning the processing of payments to and from online gambling companies.

Mr. Franzen operated a company that liaised between electronic payment processors and the online poker rooms using shell companies and fake websites to circumvent banking restrictions thus facilitating payment processing for online gambling companies.

At the hearing Mr. Franzen pleaded guilty to accepting funds in connection with illegal internet gambling, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He can face up to twenty years in prison on the money laundering charges alone.

Mr. Franzen admitted that he was under the impression that "millions of dollars" were processed but he is unaware of the exact amount, but will continue to cooperate with the prosecutors probe as part of the terms of his plea agreement.