by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Jul 23, 2012 | Updated on Jul 23, 2012Absolute Poker has largely been lost in the shuffle when it comes to Black Friday discussion. The ongoing drama with Full Tilt Poker has dominated headlines for over a year, while PokerStars’ legal maneuvering and relatively unscathed reputation has also caught the attention of players around the world. But Absolute Poker was also a target of the US government last April, and at the time, most observers felt that they were the only one of the three rooms targeted that couldn’t recover from the loss of their American player base. The site did ultimately lose all of its business, and was never able to repay players who had balances on the site – but the story didn’t end there.On Monday, Absolute Poker was back in the news, as Brent Beckley was sentenced to 14 months in prison. Beckley, a 32-year-old who served as Absolute’s head of payment processing, had already pled guilty to conspiring to break US gambling laws, including the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud.The sentence was announced by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. Judge Kaplan said that while Beckley deserved credit for cooperating with the investigation and surrendering to authorities of his own volition, jail time was still appropriate in this case.“The sentence has to make clear that the government of the United States means business in these types of cases,” Kaplan said.Kaplan was one of 11 individuals indicted in relation to the operation of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, as well as companies that helped those three sites process payments in the United States. The highest-profile case among them might be that of Raymond Bitar, the Full Tilt Poker CEO who surrendered to US authorities earlier this month.
