The legal case against Stanley Tomchin (pictured), an alleged owner of online sports betting giant Pinnacle Sports, has ended in seriously anti-climactic fashion. Tomchin was one of 25 individuals across five states indicted by the Queens County New York District Attorney’s Office in October 2012 on charges including enterprise corruption, money laundering, promoting gambling and conspiracy. The case involved an east coast betting syndicate known as the ‘Jersey boys’ using runners to place illegal ‘messenger’ bets with Nevada sportsbooks run by Cantor Gaming (now CG Technology).
Had he been found guilty on all 56 felony counts with which he was originally charged, Tomchin was looking at up to 25 years in federal prison. On Tuesday, Tomchin pled guilty to a single count of sixth degree conspiracy – a class B misdemeanor, the mildest category of crime in New York – in exchange for the dropping of all felony charges. The plea deal means Tomchin will not serve any time in jail nor will he be required to serve any period of probationary supervision. Tomchin, who had denied the charges from the get-go, let it be known through his attorneys that he’s looking forward to resuming his philanthropic work, an activity that his legal nightmare had made difficult.
David Deitch, an Ifrah Law partner who was among Tomchin’s defense counsel, said the legal team was “very pleased” by the resolution of the case. Deitch said the District Attorney’s Office “began this case with an exaggerated press statement that sought to portray Mr. Tomchin as a gangster kingpin.” The DA’s willingness to exchange all those felonies for a class B misdemeanor exposes those “clearly overblown” claims for being “no more than a smoke and mirrors façade designed to hide a case with weak evidence.”
The same October 2012 indictment also brought down former Cantor Gaming exec Mike Colbert. The Queens County DA dropped its charges against Colbert last fall in exchange for Colbert pleading guilty to a single conspiracy charge in federal court. Colbert had long since been fired from his Cantor job and the company ultimately paid a $5.5m fine to resolve the 18-count civil complaint filed against it by Nevada gaming regulators.
