Iowa 19 Yr Old Busted For Illegal Poker

Published: Friday, May 11, 2007 Online-Casinos.com

IOWA - 19 YEAR OLD BUSTED FOR ILLEGAL POKER GAMES

IOWA University student hosted illegal Texas Hold'Em games with $800 pots

The Des Moines Register reports that a 19-year-old University of Iowa student has been charged by local police with four gambling offenses on allegations that he was hosting illegal Texas Hold'em poker games with pots of around $800 in his own house.

Police officials said that Jonathon Koch's Iowa City house was "devoted to illegal poker gambling" and that he had poker tables set up in his garage, down in the basement as well as on the main floor of the house.

The local police claim that Jonathan Koch was the banker in the Texas Hold'Em poker games.

The charges include two counts of illegal poker gambling, class D felonies that carry a maximum 5-year prison term and $7 500 in fines, and two counts of keeping a gambling house, serious misdemeanors that carry a maximum one-year jail term and a $1 500 fine in the state.

Jonathan Kock was also charged with four separate drug counts after police alleged they had found about one pound of marijuana, $1 640 in cash and distribution paraphernalia.

The charges stem from incidents earlier this week, when police officers searched Jonathan Koch's house, and from February, when an undercover police officer played in one of the Texas Hold'Em poker games in Jonathan Koch's house.

The young Iowa University student Jonathan Koch is now being held in Johnson County Jail on a $25 000 cash bond. Combined the polices charges carry a maximum 24-year prison sentence and $38 000 in fines.

Court records show that the young university student is unemployed but owned a BMW worth about $70 000, had $25 000 worth of jewelry and a $2 000 scooter.