Partygaming Lobbyist Hunter Biden ResignsHunter Biden was a registered lobbyist for nine organizations, through his firm Oldaker, Biden and Belair. One of the organizations he represented was PartyGaming. Strictly speaking Biden represented Russ DeLeon, one of the founders of PartyGaming. In June 2008 Biden got the contract to promote DeLeon’s interests in Washington and was even paid $50,000 for the work done in June. Biden’s total earnings in 2008 from lobbying were $380,000.
But Hunter Biden happens to be the son of Joe Biden, who is Barrack Obama’s running mate. Since his father is gunning for the second most powerful job in America, Hunter Biden thought it prudent to resign from the lobbying business. This would prevent the opposition from getting any ammunition to fire at his father during what is going to be an acrimonious campaign. In a letter to the Clerk of the House of Representatives immediately after Joe became the Democrat Vice President Nominee, Hunter wrote, “I no longer expect to act as a federal lobbyist.”
Obama is so much against federally registered lobbyists that he not only shuns them but also refuses donations from them. Therefore Joe immediately announced that he had nothing to do with Hunter’s career and that he had never been a target of Hunter’s lobbying activities. But Hunter went one step further to do right by his father. Perhaps Hunter was influence by the fact that his brother was headed to Iraq in America’s War Against Terror. Or perhaps Hunter was influenced by the fact that one of his client’s, PartyGaming founder DeLeon, had a debatable present and a shady past.
DeLeon’s shady past comes in the form of Ruth Parasol, his better half and co-founder of PartyGaming. Ruth is the daughter of holocaust survivor Richard Parasol, who migrated to San Francisco and set up a massage parlor. Ruth graduated from Western State University College of Law in 1992. Along with her father Ruth started a phone sex business. Later she invested her income from this business in the Internet Entertainment Group Ltd., in which Seth Warshavsky was also a partner. The Internet Entertainment Group ran the adult web site Clublove.com. Around 1996 Warshavsky fled the United States and left Ruth saddled with debt. Ruth then sold her interest in the porn company and launched an online gambling site Starluck Casino.
Shortly thereafter Ruth teamed up with a computer engineer from India named Anurag Dikshit, which actually means “educated” in Hindi. Dikshit created proprietary software that allowed 70,000 players to play online simultaneously. In 2001 the duo joined hands with DeLeon and Launched PartyGaming with PartyPoker as the flagship brand. The online gambling industry was booming and PartyGaming took on board luminaries like Mike Sexton, Richard Segal and Michael Jackson (not the singer) in order to increase its credibility and its worth. Ruth and DeLeon got married in 2004 and live in Gibraltar.
So how does this story tie up with Hunter Biden? Ruth and DeLeon may get served with an arrest warrant if they enter the United States and naturally they want to rectify this situation. Hence DeLeon recruited Hunter to lobbying for him. But Hunter’s father was nominated as Obama’s VP and Hunter had to resign. |