War on Internet Gambling to be Fought by Powerful Law Firm

#1
Following charges brought up against payment solution company, NETeller, one of the two co-founders arrested last Monday retained an attorney from the powerful Washington D.C. law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr.

Stephen Lawrence has hired the services of Peter Neiman who joined the firm in 2006 after more than nine years as an Assistant United States Attorney with the Criminal Division of the Southern District of New York. The irony here of course is that the charges against Lawrence have been brought by the Southern District of New York.

As an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he focused on white collar criminal investigations involving mail and wire fraud, accounting fraud, tax fraud, securities fraud, health care fraud, art fraud, immigration fraud and foreign bribery.

During his six years in the Major Crimes Unit, Mr. Neiman tried nine white collar criminal cases, including the successful prosecution of the former owners of Days Inn of America for massive tax evasion and creditor fraud schemes, the former General Counsel of the United States Department of the Treasury for securities and wire fraud, and a leading antiquities dealer for conspiring to sell a sculpture looted from Egypt after Egypt nationalized all its antiquities. He also led the Government's largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation to date, into the alleged payment of tens of millions of dollars in bribes to the President of Kazakhstan and other senior officials there in connection with major oil deals in the 1990's.

Neiman's name is now known throughout the world as NETeller trades publicly and has made an impact in the Asian market over the past two years.

Following the NETeller arrests of Lawrence and his former partner, John Lefebvre, bank officials in the United Kingdom disclosed that the US Justice Department had subpoenaed many of the major European banks for all records pertaining to online gambling

"This will be fought in the Courts unless a financial settlement can be reached that would in essence ensure neither of the two principals in NETeller serve any jail time," commented Gambling911.com Founder and President, Christopher Costigan, in an interview with Point-Spreads.com "I don't think you will be seeing a settlement here though. NETeller has not hired some legal group fresh out of a third tier law school. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr is the Washington based law firm retained by Steven Lawrence (NETeller co-founder) and their attorneys will go for the jugular here.

"The US Prosecuting Attorneys will have their work cut out for them. Unlike with the Jay Cohen case, Lawrence has opted for specialty attorneys who won't miss a beat.

"Wilmer Cutler's presence in Washington DC is huge. Their lawyers have been very active in representing financial institutions in federal and state courts with great success. They've counseled a major international bank on its global anti-money laundering compliance regime and helping another major financial institution respond to and defend against a U.S. government request for confidential documents located abroad in the past according to the firm's impressive resume."

It is not known which other attorneys besides Mr. Neiman will act on Lawrence's behalf in a court of law.
 

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