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Guilty Pleas in BetOnSports Case
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10-Aug-2008, 08:14
Federal prosecutors can certainly claim to have scored a major jackpot with respect to their crusade to free Americans from the evils of gambling games - on the Internet, that is.
Yesterday a trio of Florida residents all entered guilty pleas in a St. Louis federal court on charges related to online gambling. The three are also all members of the same family.
Pleading guilty to charges of transporting gambling paraphernalia across state lines were William (Bill) Hernan Lenis, 55. Lenis admitted in court that his Mobile Promotions firm deployed a number of motor homes across the USA, which were designed to advertise and promote BetOnSports products and services.
The motor homes were often sent to sports events where prospective gamblers could be easily targeted and encouraged to gamble online. The company was also collecting signatures in their attempts to have US gambling laws amended.
Also pleading guilty were Manny Lenis, 29, and Will Lenis, 28.
In October 2006, the United States government banned most forms of online betting, including casinos games and Poker playing. BetOnSports was, at one time, among the highest-profile gambling firms on the Net.
In 2006 the company's founder, Gary Kaplan, and CEO at the time, David Carruthers, were also indicted on racketeering and other conspiracy charges. The indictments led to the company's very swift demise as well as agreements from former BetOnSports officials to cooperate with federal investigators.