Chad Elie Sentenced to Five Months in Prison for Black Friday Crimes

Sentencing was handed down today on one of the major payment processors in connection with Black Friday. Chad Elie was sentenced earlier today to five months in prison for his role in connection to processing payments for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker.

Elie entered a plea deal with the US Department of Justice back in April where he pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and also to operate an illegal gambling business in the United States.

When handing down sentencing to Elie, he said that Elie was playing a game of “catch me if you can” with the federal government, a game that Elie eventually lost. He also said that per the evidence, Elie exhibited an attitude that he did not care that he was committing crimes and continued with this attitude even after others had been arrested in connection with Black Friday.

Furthermore, judge Kaplan said that the defendants have exhibited a “reckless spitting in the eye of the government” when it comes to operating online poker sites serving the United States.

Elie was looking to as much as five years in prison, but the expected sentence was in the six months to a year range. In addition to five months in prison, Elie will also be forced to forfeit $500,000. This represents the money he made as payment processor for online poker companies.