In New York, Widespread Online Sport books Arrests

With a police press conference due in that time zone, a story of police arrests of New Yorkers accused of generating betting activities for a Costa Rican based sports book was emerging. This was a thirty million dollar bust which may have netted as many as sixty four people and the United States media is all over it.

All the people that were caught up in the police net consisted by ex-cops, strip club owners and suspended brokers. The most prominent among them were two ex-police detectives, strip club owners and a suspended broker.

Timothy O’Connell who is forty two years old and a former Merrill Lynch and Company broker was arrested on state gambling charges in New York, Bloomberg’s reported, which resulted in the postponing of his federal trail for a previous case of selling access to trading information broadcast over his firm’s office intercom.

Kevin Ryan, who is a spokesman for the Queens District Attorney, said in a press conference that O’Connell was just one of the seventeen people that were charged in connection with an alleged thirty million dollar online sports gambling ring. Personnel, sources said that reaching across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, several sting operations and the arrests themselves involved more than three hundred police personnel.

Ryan said “he was a runner”, “he was responsible for soliciting new bettors to the operation, maintaining the relationship with bettors and meeting with bettors to collect gambling losses and pay out winnings.”

O’Connell’s arrest brought his trail in Brooklyn, New York, federal court to a halt this morning in which the United States District Judge I. Leo Glasser later adjourned the case for the day. The trail is scheduled to resume tomorrow.

O’Connell is just one of seven defendants’ on trail for conspiring to trade on information broadcast over internal “squawk boxes” at top Wall Street firms. He and other brokers at Citigroup Inc and Lehman Brothers Holding Inc allowed day traders at AB Watley Group Inc, which is an online brokerage to eavesdrop on large international orders, this is according to prosecutors.

All seventeen were charged with the charges of enterprise corruption, promoting gambling, and conspiracy, said Ryan. The most common charge was enterprise corruption and if they are convicted of it they could face up a maximum of twenty five years in a prison due to that charge.

Casino News: In New York, Widespread Online Sport books Arrests

In New York, Widespread Online Sport books Arrests