After 13 years of being on the run, Richard Sullivan, a 73-year-old man from Antigua, has been captured by US law enforcement. Sullivan had been indicted in Boston in 2010 on several charges related to his alleged offshore sports betting operation. He was finally arrested last week at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City while being processed through customs upon his return from Antigua.
Sullivan was arraigned in the Eastern District of New York and the case has since been transferred back to the District of Massachusetts, where he will appear in a Boston federal court at a later date. The indictment alleges that Sullivan led a multimillion-dollar offshore sports betting operation called Sports Offshore and primarily focused on US customers in an illegal capacity, despite being licensed in Antigua.
At the time, legal sports betting in the US was limited to Nevada. However, the US Supreme Court struck down a federal law in May of 2018, which gave states the right to determine their own laws on sports gambling. Sullivan’s indictment in 2010 marked one of the first prosecutions of an individual under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.
The federal law prohibits a gambling business from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state law. According to prosecutors, Sullivan oversaw an illegal sports betting ring that operated in the US and employed approximately 50 people who solicited customers and collected debts.
Two of Sullivan’s associates, Todd Lyons and Daniel Eremian, were convicted for their roles in Sports Offshore in December 2011. Lyons was sentenced to four years and ordered to forfeit $24.6 million, while Eremian was sentenced to three years and ordered to forfeit $7.7 million.
Sullivan is facing serious charges, including racketeering (RICO), operating an illegal gambling business, transmission of wagering information, money laundering, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. These charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the racketeering charge alone, with an additional five years for the illegal gambling charge.
Despite facing considerably longer time in prison if found guilty, Sullivan had avoided prosecution by remaining in Antigua, where the country has refused to extradite individuals to the US facing internet gaming charges.
While Antigua does extradite persons to the US for other criminal charges, the Caribbean island country has taken issue with the US prosecution of offshore gaming websites.
Antigua is a hub for online gaming websites and won a 2003 complaint against the US filed with the World Trade Organization, which challenged the US cross-border prosecuting ability for those alleged to have allowed US residents to gamble on their offshore websites.
Well partner if you are 73, and you are facing 25 years behind bars, you are not going to see daylight again.
As for Skerrit , binoculars are watching his every move…
Too bad those binoculars don’t fit. He is still the Indomitable.
I wonder if Skerrit is part of the network? Remember he is Antiguan and Skerrit is in every corrupt thing that has to do with Antigua. So let’s wait to see who else is of interest. No wonder he ran to call press conference
I could tell you are young and restless by reading all your nonsense and garbage.
This is a case of the big guns trying to kill the little countries to continue asking for handouts. Which country has more illegal activities than the US? Gimme a break.
Skerrit and his gang think because they have not been picked up their turn will not come. They better think twice
This is Allen Stanford #2, You all thought it was only in Dominica bad things happen. They happen in Antigua too and all the other islands including Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and Guyana.