There are times when the world gives us a glimpse of that elusive ‘karmic justice’, and whenever that happens, we just have to sit back and watch with wry amusement as the wicked get their just desserts. Take this case for example: a con artist from Utah who is involved in a $275 million scam was just reported to have lost millions of dollars by gambling at Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. But the trouble doesn’t stop there. Jeremy Johnson, the con artist, already received an order from the Federal Trade Commission to keep his assets intact because of the pending investigation. There might be a huge punishment waiting for him because of this breach of the FTC’s order, further compounding the headache that this Johnson guy must be sporting right now.
Johnson’s Dirty Business
Johnson first got in trouble when the FTC discovered that his companies, I Works and Elite Debit, scammed people by giving out ‘trial memberships’ for their services. These people unknowingly got charged on their credit cards or debit cards a monthly fee despite these services being completely and utterly phony. Johnson reportedly got $275m through his modus operandi. Of course, when the FTC called him in on this, Johnson flat out denied everything. As such, the investigation is still ongoing. Judge Kent Dawson already issued a temporary restraining order to freeze Johnson’s assets as well as that of his company’s.
The money Johnson had left could have been used as compensation to the victims. They also planned to liquidate Johnson’s assets. Much of the money has already been spent, however, in the support of a very lavish lifestyle, a lifestyle that apparently involved online poker.
Johnson’s poker habits
Johnson is apparently a big fan of gambling. He hangs out frequently at Las Vegas and plays online on Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. Full Tilt, when asked about the issue, was very cooperative. They revealed that Johnson was playing under the screen name of “ginette22”. He was a mainstay on the high-stakes tables and was commonly seen in tournaments with buy ins as high as $5,000. However, Johnson seemed to have slowed down after a while or, more likely, lost so much money that he would only play at the $20 buy-in tournaments by the time he finally stopped playing last December of 2010. On PokerStars, Johnson merely said that he lost ‘way too much’.
Johnson did try giving his account over to some poker pros, with the promise of splitting the winnings, but that did not work out so well. Johnson is obviously suffering from gambling addiction, and the court has meanwhile extended the restraining order freezing his assets.
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