St. Louis Hearing An Anti-Climax

Published: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

ST. LOUIS HEARING AN ANTI-CLIMAX

Carruthers and BetonSports representatives absent.

The court hearings scheduled for Monday this week turned out to be something of an anti-climax: Dismissed BetonSports CEO David Carruthers did not make an appearance; neither did any BetonSports representative; the judge set a hearing date of August 21 but warned that there may be a postponement and another judge extended the restraint of trading order on BetonSports for the second time in as many weeks.

For those defendants named in the Missouri grand jury indictment alleging 22 serious offences, it was largely a formality. Of the 11 defendants named, 7 were in court to plead to charges ranging from illegal gambling and tax evasion to racketeering and fraud.

Entering not guilty pleas were Neil Kaplan, Lori Kaplan-Multz, Tim Brown, William H. Lenis, William L. Lenis, Manny Lenis and Monica Lenis. All were granted bail and freed.

The Kaplans are related to BetonSports founder, Gary Stephen Kaplan, who is wanted on a U.S. arrest warrant and remains at large. Brown was a former BetonSports employee, while the Lenis family members held positions with Florida firms involved in marketing the online betting operation. An attorney for one of the firms, DME Global Marketing & Fulfillment Inc., entered a not guilty plea, but two other companies did not enter pleas.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Ann Medler set a hearing date of August 21st for the defendants who appeared, but said that date may be postponed.

Carruthers' absence was not explained, but is believed to be related to difficulties in transporting him to Missouri from Texas, where he was arrested on July 16 whilst in transit to Costa Rica from the UK (see previous Online-Casinos.com and InfoPowa reports) The U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis said the timing of Carruthers' arraignment had been changed, but as at going to press no other details were available.

In a separate hearing, US District Judge Carol Jackson for the second time extended a restraining order of BetonSports requiring it to cease accepting telephoned sports bets from Americans and return their deposits. The company has closed its main sites to US gamblers.

The US attorney in St. Louis had earlier asked the judge to make the temporary restraining order a permanent ban, but this was declined until August 14, when prosecutors will have to answer questions raised by the judge concerning whether the online bookmaker was correctly served with the charges at its offices in Britain and Costa Rica.