by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Feb 29, 2012 | Updated on Feb 29, 2012Yesterday we dropped the news of the seemingly inconsequential US government seizure of Bodog.com. And today we have to report that the founder of Bodog, Calvin Ayre has been indicted by the US government, more specifically the District Court of Maryland. Calvin Ayre is just one of four men who were indicted under the charges of operating an illegal gambling business and money laundering.The first charge of operating an illegal gambling business states that Calvin Ayre, James Phillip, David Ferguson, and Derrick Maloney, “did knowingly and unlawfully conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, and own all or part of” a website that offered sports betting to residents in Maryland, which is illegal there.The money laundering charge goes into a bit more detail it stated that the four men previously stated transferred gambling monies from outside the United States to US customers, advertisers, and resellers in order to promote their “illegal” business.The indictment claims that for reparation of the illegal activities, Bodog must forfeit to the US Government all their property and gains from their time operating as Bodog.com. This indictment came about because a former Bodog employee helped the government by explaining the ins and outs of how Bodog’s corporation was set up.Calvin Ayre offered a detailed response on his personal website and said, “I see this as abuse of the US criminal justice system for the commercial gain of large US corporations. It is clear that the online gaming industry is legal under international law and in the case of these documents is it also clear that the rule of law was not allowed to slow down a rush to try to win the war of public opinion. These documents were filed with Forbes magazine before they were filed anywhere else and were drafted with the consumption of the media as a primary objective. We will all look at this and discuss the future with our advisors, but it will not stop my many business interests globally that are unrelated to anything in the US and it will not stop my many charity projects through my foundation.”Clearly he has a problem with how the US Government handled this situation and is confident that he did nothing wrong. To me it seems like the US government is acting out of line; they should really focus on more pertinent problems before they shift the spotlight onto something that did little harm to anyone.
