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Dennis Blieden at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic Season 2017-2018 (Source: WPT) According to a statement from the Central District of California US Attorney’s Office, Blieden will be sentenced on March 20, 2020, and will face up to a statutory maximum of 22 years in prison on the two counts. Dennis Blieden has pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud. The 30-year-old professional poker player and tech exec had been accused of embezzling over $22m from his former employer, StyleHaul. Tags: Dennis Blieden, LAPC, StyleHaul The former StyleHaul Vice President of Accounting and Finance, Dennis Blieden, today pleaded guilty to embezzling the company for $22 million. Dennis Blieden participates in a poker tournament in Las Vegas on May 25, 2018. (Credit: World Poker Tour / Flickr) This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
Disgraced poker player Dennis Blieden has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $22 million from his former employers then using the stolen funds to purchase cryptocurrency.
Formerly of Santa Monica but now a Cincinnati resident, 30-year-old Blieden held his hands up and pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of wire fraud. The US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California has warned Blieden faces the statutory maximum sentence of 22 years in federal prison. He has been detained until his sentencing hearing on March 20.
Blieden was the vice president of accounting and finance, and controller of StyleHaul, a digital company formerly based in Hollywood but that relocated to London earlier this year.
The court heard Blieden has control over the company’s bank accounts and abused his position to wire company funds to his personal bank account. Blieden funded his cryptocurrency account with the stolen money.
Huge Sums Paid to Poker Players, Credit cards, and Cryptocurrency Sites
According to court documents, the thefts occurred between October 2015 and March 2019. A staggering $8,473,734 was transferred to Blieden’s cryptocurrency accounts, with some of those accounts used to fund Blieden’s online gambling.
A further $1,204,000 was written in personal checks to poker players, with an additional $1,134,956 used to pay off his credit card debts.
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Bleiden made fraudulent entries into the accounting records of StyleHaul in order to conceal his embezzlement scheme. Those entries were made to look like legitimate company expenses and authorized payments to StyleHaul clients. Other entries were made to look like the transfers to Blieden’s personal accounts were “equity” draws the company owed him.
Furthermore, Blieden falsified wire transfer letters claiming to be from Western Union. These were designed to appear Blieden made wire transfers from StyleHaul to money the company owed clients.
Bleiden
As Blieden’s stealing continued to spiral out of control, he created a fictitious lease for the rental of a condominium in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, in May 2018. Blieden admitted forging the signature of a fellow StyleHaul executive to push the lease through.
The plea agreement entered by Blieden saw him admit transferring $230,000 of StyleHaul’s funds after pretending the condo was being rented to StyleHaul’s employees and clients for business purposed. Instead, Blieden pocketed the money. It is this falsifying of the executive’s signature that has landed Blieden with an aggravated identity theft charge.
Blieden Funds His Poker Playing; Banks Seven-Figure Prize
Court papers also revealed that on February 21 and 22, shortly before Blieden was dismissed from his StyleHaul job, he entered two poker tournaments. The paper claims the buy-in amounts were $52,000 and $103,000 respectively.
On February 24, Blieden also entered the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em WPT L.A. Poker Classic Championship. He outlasted 492-opponents, including defeating British star Toby Lewis heads-up, to secure the $1 million first-place prize.
The figures of $52,000 and $103,000 may not be accurate because if Blieden was in Los Angeles for the L.A. Poker Classic, the only tournaments running on those days were a $1,100 buy-in event on February 21 and a $5,250 buy-in event on February 22. This would mean he had to re-enter 46 times in the former and 18 times in the latter, which seems extremely unlikely.
Dennis Blieden
No other tournaments listed on The Hendon Mob results page give any indication as to what tournaments Blieden listed in his plea agreement.
Dennis Blieden Poker
Blieden continued playing poker right up to being arrested. He cashed in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty event at this year’s World Series of Poker for $1,603. Blieden also finished 17th from 536-entrants in the $10,300 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Vegas event for a $35,000 score.
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Dennis Blieden, the former Vice President of Accounting and Finance of StyleHaul pleaded guilty to embezzling the company of $22 m. Blieden, the 2018 LA Poker Classic winner who won whopping $1m by defeating Toby Lewis in heads up admitted to the charges. He admitted embezzling StyleHaul, a former Hollywood Digital marketer.
Blieden admitted that he used $22m of the company’s money for his personal experiences. The money was generated from representing Instagram influencers, YouTube streamers, and video bloggers. He also used the money for cryptocurrency. However, it isn’t clear how much was used to get entry into the poker tournaments. This is certainly going to creating shocking waves at the poker industry.
Blieden won the last live cash in the PartyPoker Millions Vegas Main Event. He finished in 17th place. He would, however, seek the clemency from the court. The reports suggest that the FBI has investigated the case and it is highly unlikely.
If the $22m is broken down then the pattern where the money went can be understood. $1.2m of personal cheques were paid to the other poker players, listed during the court plea. Around $1.1m was used to pay off the debt by Blieden. However, a whopping $8.4m was used from the reserves of the StyleHaul to buy his cryptocurrency.
As per the law, if all the charges are proved, then Blieden might be sent to 200 years in jail. It is a matter of seriousness for the poker industry which has dealt with many perpetrators previously. Transparency is one of the most important parts of the industry and violators often go scot-free. The Full Tilt Poker Scandal and Black Friday sit are a few of the examples of such matters where transparency was compromised. It depends a lot on the judgment of Blieden. If he goes down to jail for the rest of his life, then many others might follow.,
However, with Blieden admitting to wire fraud and identity theft, the prison term might come down to 22 years. The decision on his fate would be made on March 20 by District Judge Andre Birotte Junior.
However, with Blieden admitting to wire fraud and identity theft, the prison term might come down to 22 years. The decision on his fate would be made on March 20 by District Judge Andre Birotte Junior.
The case got substantially aggressive after the investigation shows the cover-up acts of Blieden. He tactfully covered everything up. He falsified account records and framed the transfer to his personal accounts as the ‘equity’ withdrawals. He showed that the withdrawals are owed to him by the company, Stylehaul. If that was not enough, he also forged letters from the Western Union. The payments were misrepresented by him as being to the clients whereas in actual it was to him.
However, what made things worse was identity theft. Blieden rented a property on the Rosarito Beach, Mexico. He forged the signature of a StyleHaul executive to do that. He purported that the condo was actually a business property. The property would be used by the clients and employees of StyleHaul. This made things worse for Blieden in the court plea.
The Poker player decided to gamble his life and accounts and that did not pay off well. Some people may see it daring and exciting and the jail term would help them understand the consequences of it. It is to be understood whether he is remorseful to avoid a very long jail term.
Source:https://calvinayre.com/2019/11/26/poker/former-lapc-champion-dennis-blieden-pleads-guilty-to-embezzling-22m/