An Antigua national is facing up to five years in the clink after pleading guilty to running a multimillion-dollar illegal gambling enterprise, court documents reveal. Richard Sullivan, 74, entered his plea in a Boston federal court to charges of operating an illegal gambling business and transmission of wagering information, stemming from a conspiracy that raked in over $22 million and laundered $10 million.
Sullivan was collared last August at JFK Airport after eluding U.S. authorities for more than a decade. He had been on the radar since a federal grand jury in Boston indicted him back in 2010, and now justice seems to finally catch up. The 74-year-old managed the daily activities of the gambling site Sports Offshore, which tricked punters with its Antiguan facade while taking bets in the U.S. according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
This scheme wasn’t some small-time bookie operation; it stretched from Massachusetts all the way down to Florida. Sullivan supervised employees who accepted bets from U.S. customers over the phone and the web, and used local muscle in Massachusetts to collect gambling debts, as the U.S. Attorney's Office details. They then had the money shipped straight to Antigua, using a web of bogus entities designed to throw the feds off the scent.
But alas, like so many before him caught in the tangled web of laundering and deceit, Sullivan's empire crumbled. His partners in crime, Todd Lyons and Daniel Eremian, didn't manage to slip through the net either. They were convicted in December 2011 with Lyons getting a four-year stretch and ordered to forfeit $24.6 million, and Daniel Eremian bagging three years and coughing up $7.7 million. It appears they unequivocally failed to successfully hide the massive flow of illegal betting dollars.
Sentencing for Sullivan is now pinned for March 28, 2024. While the old man faces up to five years behind bars, the actual sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge, based on guidelines and statutes that command how a sentence in a criminal case should be determined, as the U.S. Attorney's Office clarifies. The stakes are high, as Sullivan also stares down the barrel of up to three years of supervised release and fines up to $250,000 on the gambling business charge alone.
The case against Sullivan and his gang marks a milestone, being one of the first instances where individuals were prosecuted under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, particularly in Massachusetts. This law thwarts the use of the U.S. banking system to settle online gambling debts by Americans—a rule Sullivan allegedly trampled over with his illicit operation.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy and other law enforcement officials announced Sullivan's plea deal, praising the collaborative work of agencies including the IRS, U.S. Marshals Service, and the Massachusetts State Police. The case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Chao, highlights the government's continued push to gamble on cracking down hard on illegal gambling outfits.
