The 11 defendants charged with felonies related to allegedly running an illegal online sportsbook called Red44 asked for and received a trial delay. That means their day in court won’t happen until after Dec. 2.
The continuance US Magistrate Judge Gray M. Borden granted on Sept. 19 in the case filed with the US District Court, Northern District of Alabama, wasn’t the first and may not be the last.
US Attorney Prim F. Escalona is prosecuting USA vs. Timothy J. Pughsley, et al., which her office first filed on Feb. 24, 2022. However, the case didn’t become public knowledge until Jan. 6, 2023, when the US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Alabama, announced the grand jury result of the 114-count indictment against 11 defendants.
Meanwhile, officials shut down the site using Costa Rican servers that had accepted “hundreds of millions of dollars in wagers from bettors from 2019 through 2021.”
The grand jury found Red44 allegedly operated like a multi-level marketing scheme:
Bookmakers were paid a percentage of their subagents’ profits. As bookmakers grew the number of bettors within their down-line, their percentage of collected losses grew. Bookmakers also paid a percentage of collected losses to the Red44 Organization to pay for bookmaker conferences and player fees.
In addition to Pughsley, defendants are:
- Gary L. Rapp Jr.
- Mark Giaquinto
- Matthew D. Voorhees
- David Richards
- Christopher Donaldson
- Joshua Gentrup
- Christopher Burdette
- Nathanael Burdette
- Jonathan Lind
- Thomas V. Zito
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