by James
6. August 2010 09:58
This honestly sounds like the premise of a B grade Hollywood movie.
In a weird turn of events, a convicted conman has been told he must win at poker or face an intensely long jail sentence.
Samuel McMaster Jr has been found guilty of about 26 felony counts of fraud of masterminding a securities scam. In an odd twist of events, he’s been ordered to pay back his victims, and he’s going to use poker to do so. Whilst the payment plan does not involve the judge directly stipulating that he must play poker, it seems it is the only income he now has as he’s been banned from the securities industry.
The state of New Mexico is letting him travel out of state to numerous poker tournaments so that he can win the $7,5000 a month he needs to pay his monthly instalments as ordered by the state.
"We do have the unusual case here where we are agreeing to delay sentencing for a period of time to allow Mr. McMaster to set a track record as to whether or not he can pay back $400,000 in restitution," said lead prosecutor Phyllis H. Bowman.
The best part about this whole fiasco is that the cunning conman stole the money from his clients in order to fund his online poker habit. Now in an odd twist he needs to play the game in order to stay out of jail.