February 2012
Mouli Cohen Set for Sentencing
Ecast co-founder Samuel “Mouli” Cohen, who hasn’t been associated with the company’s management for close to 10 years, was set to be sentenced on Feb. 1 after a federal jury found him guilty late last year of 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, and three counts of tax evasion.
Cohen was found guilty of luring would-be investors at the non-profit Vanguard Public Foundation into a fraudulent scheme by claiming that Microsoft was about to acquire Ecast. Cohen purported to sell them his founder’s shares of Ecast for more than $6 million, despite the fact that no deal with Microsoft was pending.
Ecast and its current management played no role in these fraudulent activities.
U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag explained Cohen’s actions further in a press release put out by her office following the conviction: “Over time, however, Cohen falsely told investors that first United States regulators, and later European Union regulators, were delaying the approval of the acquisition. Cohen falsely claimed that the investors needed to pay their share of the fees and to post bonds held in escrow to assure the acquisition was completed, or the investors would lose their prior investment,” the government press release continued. “In addition to their initial $6.2 million dollar investment, over the course of approximately three years scores of investors paid $25 million toward this purported acquisition.”
Cohen reportedly spent the money on more than $6 million on private jet rentals, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, a Rolls Royce, an Aston Martin, a Jaguar, numerous luxury vacations to destinations such as Italy, the south of France, and the Caribbean, and $15,000 per month to rent a home in Belvedere, Calif. Finally, despite collecting tens of millions of dollars from victims and spending huge amounts to live a lavish lifestyle, Cohen reported almost no income on his tax returns and paid zero taxes, according to the government.
David Foley Respondt To Guilty Plea News
UltraCade founder David Foley released a statement in the wake of news that he pleaded guilty to fraud regarding his sale of Ultracade game packs to an East Coast distributor after the company had dissolved. (See the full story on Foley’s guilty plea in the News Digest section of this issue.)
Foley stressed that federal prosecutors ultimately dropped all but two counts of the original 54-count indictment against him, “including all of the allegations that Mr. Foley misappropriated Global VR intellectual property or trafficked in stolen or counterfeit goods.”
Foley maintained from the outset that he had the right to use all of the game pack technology in the UltraCade system. Specifically, he asserted that a simple review of UltraCade’s contracts with the developers of that technology made plain that even UltraCade never had the right to prevent others from manufacturing and selling game packs for the UltraCade system. Foley has also maintained from the outset that he had the necessary licenses for all of the game packs sold and that the game packs could not be counterfeit because they did not use any registered trademarks, as explicitly required by the Federal penal code.
“In accepting responsibility for his actions, Mr. Foley pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud,” the statement concluded. “The Government and Mr. Foley both reserved their right to argue the loss amount, which will determine Mr. Foley’s offense level under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Under the terms of the plea agreement, the Government can argue for a prison term of up to 41 months, and Mr. Foley can argue for no time.”
Video gaming was banned in South Carolina in 2000, but state law enforcement officials say illegal video pokers are on this rise, according to a report this week by one of the state’s news outlets. GoUpstate.com, the news website of the Herald Journal in Spartanburg, S.C., cited the State Law Enforcement Division in reporting that video poker games are “showing up again.” The assertion was made in a news report of two recent raids in which law enforcement officials seized poker machines and cash from two different locations. The investigators also took statements from patrons that they had received cash payouts.
Gaming machine maker International Game Technology has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Double Down Interactive –– a leading online social gaming company and developer of the popular DoubleDown Casino found on Facebook.
Launched in April 2010, the DoubleDown Casino is the world’s largest virtual casino and one of the top four social media games in 2011 as rated by Facebook. According to AppData.com, DoubleDown Casino currently has 4.7 million monthly active users, up from 3.3 million in October 2011.
The total consideration includes $250 million in cash, $85 million in retention payments over the next two years and up to $165 million in cash payable over the next three years subject to Double Down meeting certain financial performance targets.
“The addition of Double Down launches IGT into a leadership position in social gaming, extends our global reach through new mediums, and leverages our unmatched expertise in game development,” said IGT CEO Patti Hart.
To send email to RePlay Magazine, it's editor@replaymag.com.
(c) All contents of this page and the entire RePlay Magazine website at http://www.replaymag.com and http://replaymagazine.com. Copyright 2012 RePlay Magazine. All rights reserved.