Borrowed this from another I hope TOMCO doesn't mind, if he does I'm sorry!!
Wisconsin man pleads guilty in offshore sports betting case
Brenda Ingersoll Wisconsin State Journal
A Wisconsin man and a Nevada resident pleaded guilty Monday to gambling charges stemming from their offshore sports bookmaking operation, which took in $402.7 million in illegal wagers by phone and through the Internet.
Federal prosecutors said they have prosecuted similar gambling cases in St. Louis and New York City, but "not of this magnitude."
Duane Pede, 53, of Amherst Junction, and Jeffrey D'Ambrosia, 43, of Henderson, Nev., told U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb they owned Gold Medal Sports, which was incorporated on the island of Curacao in the Dutch Netherland Antilles in August 1996. The gambling operation lasted to April 2000.
"I was the owner of an international sports book, the purpose of which was accepting betting information from customers in the United States," Pede told Crabb. "They would call our office in Curacao and their winnings would be sent back to the United States."
Said D'Ambrosia, "We started an offshore gaming company in Curacao and accepted wagers from U.S. citizens."
Gold Medal Sports, their corporation, pleaded guilty Monday to racketeering and agreed to forfeit more than $3.3 million in illegal earnings, while Pede and D'Ambrosia, who also is known as Jeff Allen, will pay more than $1.4 million in back taxes. Gold Medal Sports also must publish a disclaimer in USA Today newspaper, disavowing claims of inside information in its sports handicapping services.
"Sports gambling is illegal everywhere in the United States except Las Vegas, whether it's on the Internet, at your neighborhood tavern or an offshore book," Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said after the hearing. "That's one of the biggest reasons this case was brought, to drive that point home."
O'Shea added, "Internet sports gaming sites say, 'legal, legal, legal.' The point of this case is to say it's not legal. It's a crime."
Pede and D'Ambrosia's customers came from all over the United States, O'Shea said.
Pede and D'Ambrosia were released on their own recognizance. They will be sentenced Feb. 26.
Pede and D'Ambrosia pleaded guilty to violating the Wire Wagering Act, for which they face a maximum penalty of two years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a one-year term of supervised release. Each man also pleaded guilty to filing a false 1998 federal income tax return, for which they face up to three years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
As part of their plea agreement, Pede and D'Ambrosia will cooperate with authorities in any other gambling cases, pay the maximum fine and pay $1,429,565 in back taxes.
O'Shea and lead prosecutor Dan Graber said that through Gold Medal Sports the men mailed brochures to U.S. residents advertising the corporation's sports book services and soliciting wagers to be made via calls to Curacao. The brochures were published by a company owned by Pede and D'Ambrosia.
The brochures often went out in tandem with mailings from Stevens Point for one of four handicapper services: Jeff Allen Sports, Mike Wynn Sports, Razor Sharp Sports and Dan Pastorini Sports, also owned by Pede and D'Ambrosia.
But Mike Wynn and Sam Sharp were fictitious people, and the "picks" attributed to them actually were made by the defendants, the government said in a criminal information.
Former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini, who played for the then-Los Angeles Raiders and the Houston Oilers, was paid by one of the defendants' companies to pose for pictures and make some radio appearances but was never involved in any sports handicapping, it said.
"They falsely depicted Dan Pastorini as a source of information for winning picks because of his network of contacts in the NFL and sporting world," it said.
Their sports-betting empire began to totter on Oct. 27, 1999, when an Internal Revenue Service agent placed a sports wager over the phone from Beloit to Curacao for $1,000. The agent bet that the Green Bay Packers would beat the Seattle Seahawks by more than five points on Nov. 1, 1999. Under the Wire Wagering Act, it is a felony to operate a gambling business and accept sports wagers over the phone or Internet from U.S. customers.
The criminal information against Gold Medal Sports alleged that Pede and D'Ambrosia owned another company, Sports Spectrum, which had offices in Las Vegas, where D'Ambrosia worked, and in Nelsonville, Wis., where Pede worked.
For a fee, Sports Spectrum allegedly provided up-to-the-minute betting lines for sporting events over the phone and sold guaranteed winning picks on events over the phone using one of the four handicapper services. It also allegedly offered sports betting and online casino gambling through Gold Medal Sports and yet another company, called Seven Palms Casino. Sports Spectrum allegedly supplied Internet access through still another company, Sports Spectrum Internet Services.
"Bettors need to know it is against the law to place sports bets with offshore sports books," U.S. Attorney Grant Johnson said.
University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor William N. Thompson, author of "Gambling in America: An Encyclopedia," said at least 800 Web sites offer online gambling. Most of those involve sports gambling.
"It's the one kind of bet you can place on a computer and have some assurance they're honest" because the outcome of a game and the point spread is known, Thompson said.
Outright bans against such games have driven them off shore with no oversight, he said. Thompson said a better approach would be strict regulation that would, for example, limit the amount of money one person could lose.
Oversight also could help control gambling addiction, which Thompson said is growing through the ease of Internet gambling.
Although bills regulating Internet gambling have passed various committees, Congress has yet to approve any of them.
Wisconsin man pleads guilty in offshore sports betting case
Brenda Ingersoll Wisconsin State Journal
A Wisconsin man and a Nevada resident pleaded guilty Monday to gambling charges stemming from their offshore sports bookmaking operation, which took in $402.7 million in illegal wagers by phone and through the Internet.
Federal prosecutors said they have prosecuted similar gambling cases in St. Louis and New York City, but "not of this magnitude."
Duane Pede, 53, of Amherst Junction, and Jeffrey D'Ambrosia, 43, of Henderson, Nev., told U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb they owned Gold Medal Sports, which was incorporated on the island of Curacao in the Dutch Netherland Antilles in August 1996. The gambling operation lasted to April 2000.
"I was the owner of an international sports book, the purpose of which was accepting betting information from customers in the United States," Pede told Crabb. "They would call our office in Curacao and their winnings would be sent back to the United States."
Said D'Ambrosia, "We started an offshore gaming company in Curacao and accepted wagers from U.S. citizens."
Gold Medal Sports, their corporation, pleaded guilty Monday to racketeering and agreed to forfeit more than $3.3 million in illegal earnings, while Pede and D'Ambrosia, who also is known as Jeff Allen, will pay more than $1.4 million in back taxes. Gold Medal Sports also must publish a disclaimer in USA Today newspaper, disavowing claims of inside information in its sports handicapping services.
"Sports gambling is illegal everywhere in the United States except Las Vegas, whether it's on the Internet, at your neighborhood tavern or an offshore book," Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said after the hearing. "That's one of the biggest reasons this case was brought, to drive that point home."
O'Shea added, "Internet sports gaming sites say, 'legal, legal, legal.' The point of this case is to say it's not legal. It's a crime."
Pede and D'Ambrosia's customers came from all over the United States, O'Shea said.
Pede and D'Ambrosia were released on their own recognizance. They will be sentenced Feb. 26.
Pede and D'Ambrosia pleaded guilty to violating the Wire Wagering Act, for which they face a maximum penalty of two years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a one-year term of supervised release. Each man also pleaded guilty to filing a false 1998 federal income tax return, for which they face up to three years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
As part of their plea agreement, Pede and D'Ambrosia will cooperate with authorities in any other gambling cases, pay the maximum fine and pay $1,429,565 in back taxes.
O'Shea and lead prosecutor Dan Graber said that through Gold Medal Sports the men mailed brochures to U.S. residents advertising the corporation's sports book services and soliciting wagers to be made via calls to Curacao. The brochures were published by a company owned by Pede and D'Ambrosia.
The brochures often went out in tandem with mailings from Stevens Point for one of four handicapper services: Jeff Allen Sports, Mike Wynn Sports, Razor Sharp Sports and Dan Pastorini Sports, also owned by Pede and D'Ambrosia.
But Mike Wynn and Sam Sharp were fictitious people, and the "picks" attributed to them actually were made by the defendants, the government said in a criminal information.
Former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini, who played for the then-Los Angeles Raiders and the Houston Oilers, was paid by one of the defendants' companies to pose for pictures and make some radio appearances but was never involved in any sports handicapping, it said.
"They falsely depicted Dan Pastorini as a source of information for winning picks because of his network of contacts in the NFL and sporting world," it said.
Their sports-betting empire began to totter on Oct. 27, 1999, when an Internal Revenue Service agent placed a sports wager over the phone from Beloit to Curacao for $1,000. The agent bet that the Green Bay Packers would beat the Seattle Seahawks by more than five points on Nov. 1, 1999. Under the Wire Wagering Act, it is a felony to operate a gambling business and accept sports wagers over the phone or Internet from U.S. customers.
The criminal information against Gold Medal Sports alleged that Pede and D'Ambrosia owned another company, Sports Spectrum, which had offices in Las Vegas, where D'Ambrosia worked, and in Nelsonville, Wis., where Pede worked.
For a fee, Sports Spectrum allegedly provided up-to-the-minute betting lines for sporting events over the phone and sold guaranteed winning picks on events over the phone using one of the four handicapper services. It also allegedly offered sports betting and online casino gambling through Gold Medal Sports and yet another company, called Seven Palms Casino. Sports Spectrum allegedly supplied Internet access through still another company, Sports Spectrum Internet Services.
"Bettors need to know it is against the law to place sports bets with offshore sports books," U.S. Attorney Grant Johnson said.
University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor William N. Thompson, author of "Gambling in America: An Encyclopedia," said at least 800 Web sites offer online gambling. Most of those involve sports gambling.
"It's the one kind of bet you can place on a computer and have some assurance they're honest" because the outcome of a game and the point spread is known, Thompson said.
Outright bans against such games have driven them off shore with no oversight, he said. Thompson said a better approach would be strict regulation that would, for example, limit the amount of money one person could lose.
Oversight also could help control gambling addiction, which Thompson said is growing through the ease of Internet gambling.
Although bills regulating Internet gambling have passed various committees, Congress has yet to approve any of them.
