NETeller founder Stephen Lawrence pleads guilty to Criminal Conspiracy
Written by Thomas Jensen
Fri, 29 Jun 2007
Category general
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Stephen Lawrence, founder of payment processor NETeller Plc, pleaded guilty today to a criminal conspiracy charge. Lawrence has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the case and to be partially responsible for the $100 million the United States government is seeking from people who were involved with the operation.
On Thursday June 27th, 2008 NETeller announced that their 2006 annual audited financials would be delayed because of the ongoing investigation taking place.
The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel during a hearing in Manhattan. Co-founder John Lefebvre's trial is still pending and it is unknown at this time if Lefebvre will plead guilty or continue to fight the charges.
The pair were arrested and charged in January with conspiring to transfer funds with the intent to promote internet gambling. After the arrests, NETeller Plc decided to leave the US market.
"I came to understand that providing payment services to online gambling Web sites serving customers in the United States was wrong," he told the judge.
Both Lawrence and Lefebvre are Canadian citizens founded the company in 1999 and based the company out of the Isle of Man, eventually floating it on the London Stock Exchange.
Prosecutors in the case estimated that NETeller processed at least $5.1 billion worth of internet gambling transactions in the first half of 2006 alone.
