Samuel McMaster Plays Poker to Avoid Jail
Written by Renee K | Sunday, August 8th, 2010
A professional poker player from New Mexico will have to pray that he does well at the game over the next six months – because if not, he’s going to jail. A judge has made the surprising move to allow Samuel McMaster to travel out of state in a bid to earn the money he needs to pay back as restitution.
The 59 year old was charged with swindling at least 26 elderly people out of their savings, and he has half a year to pay back the $440,000. As part of a plea deal, the player has promised to pay back the money in $7,500 monthly installments and – in return – the judge will provide a more lenient sentence after the money is paid back.
The story unfolded after McMaster was arrested and pled guilty to 26 felony counts. Because of these charges, he was barred from working in the securities industries, and turned to professional poker playing instead.
In a bid to lessen the 84 years jail sentence that he could have faced, McMaster entered a plea bargain with authorities and promised to pay the money back within 6 months. The terms of the deal are that if he falls back by two payments within this time period, he will be sentenced to jail immediately and face up to 12 years in prison.
State prosecutor, Phylis H. Bowman said: “We do have the unusual case here where we are agreeing to delay sentencing for a period of time to allow Mr. McMaster to set a track record as to whether or not he can pay back $400,000 in restitution.”
McMaster will thus be traveling out of state to try and win around the poker tables in a bid to meet the $7,500 monthly payments.
Good luck, we say.
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· Written by Renee K · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
