Canadian Man Pleads Guilty in U.S. Online Gambling Charge

Douglas Rennick, a Canadian man, has pleaded guilty to a count of processing offshore bets of U.S. citizens. Originally Rennick was looking at a charge of conspiracy and bank fraud. He had allegedly laundered $350 million dollars for overseas internet gambling companies.

Rennick was indicted in August and on Tuesday entered a guilty plea to the one charge in New York Federal court. Part of the plea was forfeiting $17.1 million and a possible prison term of 6-12 months. Sentencing will be held Sept. 15th, 2010.

According to a statement to the Judge Tuesday, Rennick said,

“I had a business that transferred money from offshore gaming sites to American players within the Southern District of New York.”

According to the U.S. Attorney, he used these businesses to transfer money from a Cyprus bank to U.S. accounts to pay U.S. players who have cashed out there gambling winnings from 2007 to around June of 2009.

According to the U.S. government, Rennick told the U.S. banks he was using the accounts to process rebate checks, refund checks, payroll processing and other various uses. Instead, they said, he laundered money from online gambling companies. The companies in which he was said to operate were, My ATM Online, KJB Financial Corp., Account Services Corp. and Check Payment Financial Co.

Currently Rennick lives in British Columbia, Canada and is free on $400,000 personal recognizance bond.