Thursday, March 22, 2007

Internet gambling charges against an executive with a British company were
dismissed Tuesday in exchange for $400,000 after extradition issues left the
case nearly impossible to prosecute, St. Landry Parish District Attorney's
Office announced. State Police, working with St. Landry prosecutors, had
secured warrants in May in an investigation that focused on Sportingbet PLC,
a company that operates out of England, where online gambling is legal. The
company's former chairman, Peter Dicks, was arrested on a Louisiana warrant
in September in New York. But Dicks was freed because New York law allows
extradition only when the accused was physically present in the state where
the alleged crime was committed. Dicks could have been arrested had he set
foot in Louisiana, but prosecutors did not expect that to happen any time
soon. "We were at the point where we couldn't get them here," St. Landry
Parish District Attorney Earl Taylor said. ". We tried to do something to
make them pay." Taylor said officials with Sportingbet approached his office
about what could be done to resolve the pending legal case, which could have
remained in limbo for several years. "They wanted to get the arrest warrants
dismissed," Taylor said. He said the $400,000 - delivered by check Tuesday
morning - will be shared by his office, State Police and the state Attorney
General's Office. The District Attorney's Office will use its share of the
money to support programs to tackle Internet-related crimes, such as
identity theft, child pornography and online gambling, Taylor said.
Opelousas attorney Leslie Schiff, local counsel for Sportingbet, confirmed
the arrangement with District Attorney's Office but had no further comment.
The dismissal of the gambling charges comes after Congress passed a law last
year that curtailed Internet gambling by prohibiting the use of credit cards
and electronic transfers to pay bets over the Internet. Louisiana is one of
only a handful of states that have banned online wagering, and the case
against Sportingbet was one of the first since the practice was banned here
in 1997. The case was launched in St. Landry Parish because it was worked by
State Police investigators out of the Opelousas office.