As part of a plea deal with US authorities, the former online poker executive, Anurag Dikshit, will not be facing jail time in the United States for violating the Federal Wire Act.
Dikshit, who was part owner of Party Gaming and its Party Poker arm, agreed to cooperate with US authorities as part of his plea deal. In a statement issued shortly after his ‘admission of guilt’, he said: “I came to believe that there was a high probability it [Party Gaming] was in violation of US laws.”
It was Dikshit himself who approached US authorities several years ago to initiate negotiations that would end the threat of prosecution once and for all. The Department of Justice saw Dikshit’s plea deal as an important victory. What followed shortly was a non-prosecution deal with Party Gaming, where the Gibraltar group admitted – as part of the bargain – that its US operations had violated US laws for years.
Dikshit travelled from Gibraltar last week on a one-way ticket to attend his sentencing hearing in New York. He faced a maximum of two years in prison for his violation of the Federal Wire Act, to which he pleaded guilty in 2008 (and was ordered to forfeit $300 million).
The ruling US District Judge, Jed Rakoff sentenced Dikshit to one year probation and no jail time, saying: “I am persuaded that no jail time is appropriate here.”
Nobody actually expected Dikshit to wind up in jail, as many other online poker entrepreneurs are not prosecuted. The Party Poker exec’s former partners and co-founders of Party Gaming, Ruth Parasol and her husband, Russell DeLeon have not settled with the Feds and have not been charged. They saw Dikshit’s admission of guilt as a betrayal and this sentiment was echoed by the online poker community in general.
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