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Did Washington State and Louisiana officials collude on gambling charges?
The results of yesterday (Monday) afternoon's extradition hearings on Betcha.com owner Nick Jenkins and two colleagues were not available at press time today and will be reported in due course, but in the meantime Jenkins's blog at http://www.betcha.com/Blogs has disclosed what appears to be some alarming collusion between Washington State and Louisiana officials.
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Jenkins, readers will recall, is the Seattle lawyer and owner of the P2P website Betcha.com. Jenkins disputes the Washington State Gambling Commission's claim that his site is illegal. The WGSC subsequently initiated a late night raid in which Betcha.com equipment was confiscated, and Jenkins launched litigation against the Commission.(see previous InfoPowa reports)
When Nick and his attorney were last at the offices of the Washington State Gambling Commission, serving notice of litigation, they were told that two other states were "interested in the case." Presumably because those states had access to otherwise confidential information.
Immediately after Jenkins and his attorney left that meeting, the first bet from the state of Louisiana on Betcha.com took place.
The next move in the saga came when three Seattle police officers accompanied by Louisiana officials arrested Betcha.com's Chief Technology Officer at the Seattle office. Jenkins and the company's server admin officer immediately turned themselves in, and were deprived of their liberty. Alarmingly, it is claimed that when officials from Louisiana showed up with Washington State Troopers to make the arrests they did not produce an arrest warrant until the trio were in court.
The "crime" ? Someone in Louisiana used Betcha.com to take $35 worth of bets from other bettors, whereby the site made all of 70 cents in gross revenue.
Despite Louisiana opposition to bail on grounds of "flight risk" the judicial authorities in Seattle eventually ordered the three men released on their personal assurances not to flee before further hearings. And the extradition hearing was set for yesterday (Monday) afternoon.
Jenkins reviews the issue as follows on his blog:
"Betcha.com was up for approximately a month. During that time, not a single resident of Louisiana took a bet on the site until approximately one hour after we served the WSGC with notice that we were suing them based on their wrongful application of Washington law.
"That service happened at a meeting in which they told us that they were in contact with two other states about Betcha. (I wonder if Louisiana was one of them?)
"Our gross revenue off said bettor was $.70 (yep, seventy cents)
"For operating The Site for approximately one month, we now face felony fugitive charges for a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and up to a $20,000 fine. For $.70."
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