Will This Week See a BetOnSports Trial Date Set At Last?

March 10, 2009 (InfoPowa News) — The idea of keeping businessmen charged with online gambling-related offenses in custody for over two years without trial beggars the imagination, yet that is what has happened to two former executives of the now moribund but once thriving online gambling group BetonSports.com … and in the archetypal land of the free, the United States of America.
 
Arrested at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice, U.K. citizen David Carruthers as former CEO and Gary Kaplan as U.S. founder and consultant to the company have been in detention — albeit a reasonable benign form of house arrest for Carruthers — for well over two years.
 
Kaplan has applied for bail on a number of occasions on grounds of ill-health and Speedy Trial provisions, all to no avail as the authorities presumably continue to construct a solid case assured of convictions.
 
His latest attempt was rejected by a U.S. District Judge last week on grounds that his Speedy Trial rights had not been violated.
 
The good news for both men is that a hearing is scheduled for March 18th 2009 to set a trial date that will give the two men an opportunity to present their defence in court … and perhaps be allowed at last to resume a normal life.