Former Utah Attorney Generals Arrested for Helping Illegal Poker Businesses

Recent news say there are 23 charges of corruption against former Utah Attorney Generals John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff.

Charges include bribery, unreported income and destruction of evidence. It is said that the defendants had ties to Jeremy Johnson, a suspicious businessman, SunFirst Bank and companies processing payments for online poker sites in the US, which were dismantled in April 2011, on a day now known as Black Friday.

“Johnson himself acknowledged engaging in multiple bribes and bribe attempts designed both to assist the SunFirst poker processing operation and to forestall an ongoing Federal Trade Commission case involving iWorks, his Utah-based online- and telemarketing concern,” a reporter wrote.

New accusations come to light

Under American gambling laws, processing online payments for casino games was illegal, but operators argued that the law did not apply to poker, which is a game of skill. On Black Friday, authorities shut these websites down. Johnson allegedly recorded a conversation with Shurtleff in 2012.

“The FTC targeted Johnson and iWorks in late 2010 in a $275 million lawsuit alleging false and deceptive marketing practices and illegal credit-card billings. The ongoing FTC case and the commingling of funds between Johnson’s iWorks and online-poker corporate entity Elite Debit are why Johnson was not named as a 12th criminal defendant in Black Friday poker case.”