Scott Tom Out of Custody Back Home to Antigua

Scott Tom, co-founder and former president of Absolute Poker, has been released from jail in the US after serving just 7 days and has flown home to Antigua according to a Calvin Ayre report this week.

Tom, who was also one of the main culprits behind the ‘superuser’ scam which stole millions from unsuspecting players prior to Black Friday, returned to the US earlier this year and plead guilty to a misdemeanour, the plea deal his lawyers made seeing him convicted only of being ‘an accessory after the fact to the transmission of wagering information’ and not the felony money laundering and illegal gambling charges which he was indicted under in 2011.

Although still facing a possible sentence of up to one year in prison for the misdemeanour when he appeared for sentencing on September 28th, he was apparently confident that he would be released immediately for ‘time served’ and had bought a non-refundable flight ticket back to Antigua, which US Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses called “a bold move”.

The bold move, however, didn’t work out as planned when Judge Moses ‘apparently went a bit ‘rogue,’ according to Calvin Ayre and decided that Tom should spend at least some time in a jail cell, her unexpected decision based on the fact that the booking process did not necessarily count as ‘time served’.

Tom was also ordered to forfeit $300,000 as part of the deal, and also agreed to forfeit property obtained in conjunction with his illegal behaviour – but the presiding judge decided that there was no need for a ‘supervised release’, freeing Tom from any further obligations after serving his 7 days and paying his fine.

There was no mention during the case of the ‘superuser’ scandal in which Tom and his accomplices used a glitch in the online poker software to see their opponent’s hole cards, this ‘God-mode’ allowing them to win millions from unsuspecting players and leading to the biggest scandal in poker history, also engulfing sister site Ultimate Bet – amateur detectives from the 2+2 forum unearthing a mountain of evidence against Tom and his associates.

As for the customers of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet whose funds were frozen or disappeared after the Black Friday bust by the US authorities, the good news came a few weeks ago when 7400 of them learned they would be entitled to a share of the $33.5million left over from the Full Tilt remission process – payments beginning to arrive early last week.

With Scott Tom’s troubles apparently behind him, only Isai Scheinberg – the former owner of PokerStars – is left from the original 11 people indicted on Black Friday who has yet to settle his affairs with the US authorities.