Oklahoma resident Teddy Mitchell (pictured) has been sentenced to 27 months in US federal prison after pleading guilty in July to charges of illegal gambling and money laundering. Mitchell was one of nine individuals charged in September 2012 for their involvement in a credit betting operation linked to a Costa Rica-based online sports betting site. Just last week, Colorado officials arrested a man for involvement in an online credit betting operation with ties to Richard Hancock, another of the individuals indicted along with Mitchell in 2012. Hancock was given a 15-month sentence in August, in addition to forfeiting nearly $2.5m in cash and property.
The 59-year-old Mitchell was facing a maximum sentence of 25 years for his crimes. Having already agreed to forfeit $1m in cash and property, Mitchell had asked the court for leniency when it came to incarceration because he is the sole caregiver for his four-year-old daughter. Mitchell’s wife Julie was found beaten to death in the couple’s Oklahoma City home in November 2010. The crime has never been solved.
In court on Friday, Mitchell said he was “sorry I broke the law,” but US District Judge David Russell didn’t buy Mitchell’s assertions that he didn’t believe at the time that his bookmaking activities – which reportedly earned Mitchell $900k per year – were illegal. Mitchell claimed to have received guidance years ago from a federal agent that all he needed to comply with US law would be to acquire a federal tax stamp. Mitchell will remain free on bond until he begins serving his sentence on Feb. 24.
WHOJEDI IN THE CASINO WITH CHOPSTICKS
Over in Connecticut, further details have surfaced regarding poker blogger/photographer/videographer Jay ‘WhoJedi’ Newnum‘s theft of $700 worth of tips belonging to dealers at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Newnum, who’d been hired by the casino to document a MegaStacks tournament, was arrested for the theft on Dec. 16 and was granted entry into the state’s accelerated pretrial rehabilitation on Christmas Eve. On Thursday, Connecticut police released their first statement on the incident, which revealed that Newnum had been observed using chopsticks to ‘fish’ the cash via a hole in the locked box containing the dealers’ tips. Newnum has since released a statement saying he would be “indefinitely” stepping away from the poker world.
