Judge Sentencing Russian Mobsters Who Pleaded Guilty To Running Illegal Poker Games
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - A New York judge is taking a stern approach in sentencing members of a Russian organized crime operation that offered high-stakes poker games to the rich and famous. The customers included pro athletes, Hollywood celebrities and Wall Street executives.
Judge Jesse Furman on Wednesday ordered 53-year-old Adam Trincher to prison immediately to begin a five-year sentence. Trincher sobbed as he apologized.
Judge Sentencing Russian Mobsters Who Pleaded Guilty To Running Illegal Poker Games
The sentence was more than double the guidelines range originally calculated in the case when the defendants pleaded guilty. Furman said a five-year sentence was warranted for Trincher and another defendant sentenced a day earlier because of the size of the gambling operation and a money laundering scheme that accompanied it.
Hillel "Helly'' Nahmad, a wealthy Manhattan art scion, also will be sentenced. He is one of 28 people who pleaded guilty.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, the $100 million gambling operation was run out of Nahmad's luxurious apartment in Trump Tower.
Nahmad has been asking the judge to spare him prison time and instead sentence him to community service so he can spend $100,000 a year bringing children from a Bronx homeless shelter to Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cornell reported.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Alex Rodriguez and high rollers on Wall Street were among those who took part in the high-stakes poker games.
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