Ira Rubin, one of the people mentioned in the Department of Justice’s Black Friday indictment, has been denied bail by a New York judge. He is accused of helping online poker websites circumvent the United States’ UIGEA laws.

The magistrate judge decided to deny Rubin’s bail after Arlo Devlin-Brown, the U.S. prosecutor, presented Rubin as a threat to leave. Devlin-Brown presented evidence that Rubin fled to Costa Rica in December of 2006 after being served papers in a telemarketing fraud case. Rubin has lived in Costa Rica ever since. Additionally, Rubin apparently “chartered a plane to Guatemala from Costa Rica…then intended to go to Thailand,” on Black Friday. Rubin was found in Guatemala, arrested, and taken to the United States. Rubin confessed to an inmate in jail that he wanted to use a fake passport in Guatemala to flee the country.

Stuart Meissner, Rubin’s lawyer, paints Rubin’s actions in a different light. Meissner claims that Rubin wanted to stay in the United States to face the charges presented against him that may land him in prison for 30 years. As for the trip to Guatemala, Meissner states that it was previously planned. In response to the government’s actions in regards to online poker, Meissner went on record to say:

This is the U.S. war on gambling as opposed to the U.S. war on terrorism. I don’t think this is a good use of taxpayer resources.

FlopTurnRiver will be sure to write up-to-date articles on any happenings in the poker world, especially those revolving around Black Friday.