Scott Tom Serves Week Long Jail Sentence for Black Friday Role

More than six years after Black Friday, Absolute Poker co-founder Scott Tom is back in Antigua after serving a week long jail sentence for his role in the mother of all online poker scandals. Tom’s sentence was part of a plea deal that could have involved up to a year behind bars.
Tom returned to the United States to face illegal gambling charges back in February after years of living as a fugitive from the Department of Justice in the Caribbean. Since returning to face the music, his attorneys cut a deal for him that involved paying a $300,000 fine and time served.
US Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses, the judge who was actually charged with sentencing Tom, had very different ideas on the matter. She wasn’t particularly impressed with the notion that the time served by Tom involved simply being booked and released from Federal custody and order him to serve seven days.
Tom was, according to a report on CalvinAyre.com, quite surprised when the Judge Moses informed him that the booking process doesn’t really qualify as, “serving time,” in her view and ordered him to spend some actual time behind bars. Tom’s attorney attempted to argue that there was precedent for using a the booking process as time served, but was unable to point to details.
Judge Moses was also unimpressed when his attorney pointed out that Tom had purchased a non-refundable airline ticket to return home to Antigua where he lives, but maintains his US citizenship. Apparently she’s a proponent of the legal theory, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”
Once he’s actually served his time, Scott will have no further obligations to the DOJ for his role in Absolute Poker’s collapse or the Black Friday scandal.