And then we got to the sticky part. Castel said the violation meant that Lefebvre was admitting to participating in a conspiracy from June 1999 to January 2007. One of the objects of the conspiracy was that Lefebvre and others “engaged in the business of betting and wagering unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly.” This part of the conspiracy was weird, since Neteller employees were not actually gambling but moving clients’ money around. The next part was a little more comprehensible—Lefebvre and others knowingly used a “wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate and foreign commerce of bets, wagers and information assisting in the placing of bets and wagers on sporting events and contests and for the transmission of wire communications which did entitle the recipient to receive money and credit as a result of bets and wagers and for information assisting in the placing of bets and wagers.”
At least that clause made sense, because it was what Neteller was all about, and if it was a conspiracy, all Lefebvre could respond to this charge was “I understand that completely.”
Judge Castel mentioned the sentence contained in the charge: maximum five years’ prison; maximum three years’ supervised release; maximum fine of the greatest of $250,000, twice the gross pecuniary gain derived from the offense or twice the gross pecuniary loss to a person other than yourself as a result of the offense; and please, don’t forget the $100 special assessment.
Plus—oh, yes—the forfeiture allegation. If Lefebvre admitted to it, he would forfeit his interest in “money used in the gambling offenses and all property, real and personal, that constitutes or is derived from the proceeds of the violations of law, including but not limited to at least the $100 million in U.S. currency.” The government had calculated a sum of $100 million dollars, but don’t worry, it was going to be split between Lefebvre and Lawrence. Yes, he understood he was about to get dinged for $40 million, and, maybe, if you think he needed to think about what he had done, Your Honor, do time.
Castel then turned to the sentencing part of his program. Again, it was a boilerplate: He told Lefebvre he would consider a range of factors—“the nature and circumstance of the offense, your personal background and any criminal record you may have” and would read the prepackaged presentence report written by a member of the probation office. The report would relay information on Lefebvre’s life history and background and would recommend to the judge a range for the sentence, under sentencing guidelines. He told Lefebvre he would hear from government lawyers about how the defendant had conducted himself, whether or not he had cooperated with the feds in their ongoing investigation of online gambling, and, if so, how much. He would also hear from Lefebvre’s lawyer about how his client had been turning his life around and, yes, how much he had been assisting the government in catching other alleged bad guys. Then he cautioned Lefebvre that, look, even after doing all that reading and listening, he was the judge and therefore under no obligation to follow anyone’s advice: “I need not follow it and can sentence you all the way up to the statutory maximum. The guidelines are advisory and are not binding on me. Do you understand all of that?”
With that vice clamp, Lefebvre could only say, “Yes, I do, Your Honor.”
Even though Castel had accepted the plea bargain, he still had to hear what Treanor’s case would have been against Lefebvre had the proceedings gone to trial. So he asked for the government’s evidence. Treanor said he had to show beyond reasonable doubt that Lefebvre and others were part of a conspiracy in violation of U.S. law and the agreement to do so “had some nexus to the Southern District of New York.” Treanor had to prove that Lefebvre violated the Wire Act by knowingly using some kind of wire communication to transmit bets.
Then Treanor had to prove that Lefebvre violated the Illegal Gambling Business Act, 18 U.S. Code, Section 1955. He said, “An offense under that statute requires the government to prove that someone knowingly conducted an illegal gambling business. That’s a business that operated in violation of the law of a particular state. Here the violation is of the law of New York State.” In other words, the charges had come out of New York so he had to show that Lefebvre had broken New York laws. Glavine had talked about how Neteller turned off certain states where the laws made it too hot to operate. New York wasn’t one of them.
Then there was the money part. Treanor had to prove that Lefebvre’s business involved at least five people, had operated for at least a month, and had gross receipts of at least $2,000 a day. Easy peasy, since Neteller had hundreds of employees, operated for almost a decade, and was, by the time of the bust, watching billions pump annually through its monetary ventricles.
And then there was the money laundering. According to 18 U.S. Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A), it’s illegal to move money “from either inside the United States to out or from outside of the United States to in,” for the purposes of gambling. That was Treanor’s way of saying in and out of the U.S. Okay, maybe yes, maybe no. Again, Neteller wasn’t one of the bookies, it simply handled the movement of clients’ funds, but Treanor was going to want to say, lump it, Neteller exec, it’s money laundering according to U.S. law.
Last, Treanor had to show Lefebvre knowingly set up and ran an unlicensed money transmitting business (18 U.S. Code, Section 1960) that promoted illegal gambling between states as well as foreign commerce. Again, maybe yes, maybe no. The gambling sites themselves were invariably located in legal jurisdictions, but whatever, Treanor won’t have trouble convincing a U.S. magistrate judge that Neteller, and Lefebvre, had observed a rather loose interpretation of the law.
Then, at trial, Treanor said, the government would have to parade to the stand both its cooperating and its law enforcement witnesses. Castel would be treated to “voluminous evidence” of online transactions involving Neteller with people living in the Southern District of New York, Manhattan, and Westchester County.
Castel then turned to the defendant and asked him to describe, in his own words, what he did that led him to believe he was guilty. Lefebvre asked to read from his notes. Permission was granted. He read the same facts Lawrence had trotted out: Neteller was a money transfer business; six hundred thousand accounts by 2004; more than one thousand merchants connected to the system; almost all business coming from U.S. customers, “including Manhattan.”
Lefebvre told Castel he was president of Neteller until the end of 2002 and that Neteller had some 170 employees by March 1, 2004. He added he was also a director and member of the U.K. version of the company until December 2005. After that, his only role was that of shareholder. “Among other things,” he said of this period, he “managed internal operations of the Neteller group.” Then he recited the “admitting guilt” mantra Lawrence had been advised to say: “During my involvement in the Neteller group, I learned that the United States had legislation barring certain transactions intending to fund online gambling services. With this knowledge I eventually came to see that providing payment services to online gambling businesses serving customers in the United States was wrong.”
Castel thanked Lefebvre for the admission. He asked both Treanor and Marella whether or not there was a “sufficient factual predicate” for Lefebvre to enter a plea of guilty. They both agreed there was. Castel hammered away at Marella one more time about mounting a plausible defense. Marella told him it was not possible. Castel turned to the defendant and said, “Mr. Lefebvre, how do you plead to Count 1 of the information, guilty or not guilty?”
“I plead guilty, Your Honor.”
Castel said, “All right.” One down. On to the forfeiture. Same deal. Lefebvre admitted to the allegations. Castel reiterated his opinion that Lefebvre was fully cognizant of what was happening around him, and so therefore he accepted the guilty plea and the admission of forfeiture. He stated he wanted a presentence investigation and advised, “Mr. Lefebvre, it’s important that you be candid, honest, truthful, accurate with the people who prepare the presentence report. Tell them the good things and ev
en the not-so-good things, because that report will be important in the decision I make on sentencing.”
Marella and Lefebvre would get their chance to review the report prior to sentencing. If there were any errors, Castel wanted to know about them. He set the sentencing date for November 1, 2007, at 9:30 a.m.
Lefebvre’s lawyer then haggled to get his client a bit of breathing room. The current supervision was intense—daily reporting. Castel decided in favor of the defendant. Pretrial supervision would be allowed to remain L.A.-based and required Lefebvre to make in-person appearances at least once a month. His travel would no longer be confined to the Central District of California and to the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. He would be allowed to travel throughout the U.S. and Canada. The problem was, no one knew where his passport was. It had been surrendered either at pretrial services or the clerk’s office in L.A. and hadn’t been seen since. Castel said he couldn’t sign an order to return the passport until it was found and directed Treanor to find it in the next two days.
Castel had a final word for Lefebvre: show up on November 1 or face being charged with an additional crime—bail jumping—which could net him up to another five years tacked onto whatever he was going to get, plus another quarter million of his cash donated to Uncle Sam. Lefebvre understood. That turned out to be a non-issue because it would take more than four years for Lefebvre to get his final day in court.
Lefebvre was on tenterhooks, waiting to be sentenced. He could mix his double album, he could nurture his romance with Hilary Watson, and he could build his working relationship with the Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver, yet with the all this legal uncertainty he felt suspended in the business of life. He stewed about the injustice of it, but he had to follow Marella’s advice. There was no other way to do this except to wriggle out slowly and pay dearly to do it.
For therapy, Lefebvre decided to write a screed about his issues with the U.S. government. “The law as to internet gambling is a hypocrisy,” it said in part. “This is not to say that the individuals who are conducting my prosecution are hypocrites. I believe that they are performing their duties with the utmost good faith. They have been consummate ladies and gentlemen at every turn. But they are also officers. And their office has been set in the service of hypocrisy, supported and enforced by a gross abuse of the criminal authority, to corner a market, against America’s most fundamental value: Freedom.”
XV (2007–10)
“That’s a Lot of Giving Away Money They Took Away”
Lefebvre, Hilary Watson, and I are scheduled to attend the Western Magazine Awards in Vancouver. The magazine article I wrote about him, published in Swerve magazine, the weekly glossy insert in the Calgary Herald, is up for a couple of awards. I asked him whether he might want to attend and he replied, “Sure, why not? Thanks, man.” It’s Friday, June 20, 2008, and I’ve flown on Air Canada from Toronto to meet the couple at Lefebvre’s condo on Beach Avenue, across the street from English Bay in Vancouver’s West End, just up the hill from Stanley Park. They’re flying in on a Salt Spring Air floatplane. If the tide is high they get picked up at Lefebvre’s house; if it’s low they’ve got to make the seven-mile drive to the harbor. They get dropped off either at Vancouver International or downtown, at the harbor, whichever happens to be convenient. In this case, downtown is the ticket.
It’s not a walk-up; you use a personal smart card to activate the elevator and the doors open to the fourth floor, Lefebvre’s sumptuous but dark-hued and unexpectedly gloomy flat. I get the impression he doesn’t much like the place. He calls the ornate faux Roman columns and protective gargoyles too “guido” for his taste. I wonder why he bought it and realize that perhaps he didn’t have the time—frazzled from the bust and its aftermath—for a long search. He’ll make good on his distaste: a year later he’ll sell it and buy an eleventh-floor condo near Granville Island—more his speed. Still, it’s spacious, well laid out, and appointed in the usual all-silver, all-dark-wood, rich-yuppie style.
We watch a bit of soccer on the super-sized screen before heading out in a cab. The awards night is being held at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, next to Vancouver, a tacky location for an awards banquet that celebrates feature writing—or maybe apropos.
First thing we notice at the awards show is a silent auction. Lefebvre cruises the available artworks, donated to the cause courtesy of local artists, and bids $3,000 on one piece of art I guess wouldn’t have gone for more than $300. A nice piece of post-pop art—my friend Shelley and I both were eyeing it before Lefebvre jotted down his slam bid. We look at the number, then each other, then roll our eyes and smile our little crooked smiles. He walks back and forth, writing his name into a half dozen slots for varying amounts from $3,000 down to $500. No matter what number he scrawls, Lefebvre far outbids every other name on the chits.
Judging from the amount of art on the walls of his Salt Spring Island house—and leaning against the walls on the main floor, in the basement, in the yard off to the left of the dining room sliding door, not to mention the pieces of sculpture out on the lawn overlooking the Strait of Georgia, the mermaid sculpture that plays peekaboo with the tides every day—and his Beach condo and his house in Calgary, Lefebvre buys as much this way as he does at galleries. Lefebvre buys art this way because he likes to support young artists and struggling artists. Artists, period. Whether it’s of lasting value is a matter only time will tell—and a question that probably doesn’t interest him.
The awards go on and on, beginning only after the full-course dinner is served and consumed and after master of ceremonies Steve Burgess takes the floor—literally, for there is no stage. The jokes sally forth and then collapse on the floor in a heap in front of the hapless emcee as we chow down. Now Burgess has to fight through full-stomach lethargy to knock attendees out of their narcolepsy, finally eliciting a few laughs out of the stuffed gullets. My story does not win, but one of my fellow Swerve scribes, whom I’ve just met, walks away with three Ws. We all congratulate him. He says with the prize money he and his wife can now afford a honeymoon.
Once the interminable proceedings grind to a halt, the WMA woman in charge of the auction comes over to Lefebvre. She tries to talk him into taking the artworks with him, right then and there. Twice, perhaps three times, the conversation circles around to closing the deal—tonight. “Would it be possible for you to take the works home?” she inquires, not quite sweetly. “We’d be happy to order a cab for you.”
Lefebvre isn’t having any of it. His lady friend is with him. It’s a social occasion. He doesn’t need to be bothered with carrying around works of art at midnight on a Friday night. Lefebvre detects a hint of desperation in the woman’s appeal, as if she might be worried he isn’t good for the money. While thanking him graciously for his generous bids and patronage, perhaps she might be able to settle this business with them tonight?
What this woman doesn’t comprehend is that underneath Lefebvre’s jelly-like bonhomie is bedrock. It’s bedrock made from stubbornness, the finest granite. Lefebvre makes it known that he won’t be picking up the artworks tonight. No, he won’t be taking them with him this evening, or any other evening in fact. Someone else will be doing the picking up and dropping off, and so far as he’s concerned that someone can just as easily come by on the weekend. Or Monday. Yes, if Monday would be preferable for her then that could work for Lefebvre, too. Right? Right. Or perhaps the lady would prefer he send someone around to pick them up and ship them to Salt Spring Island—would that work for her?
The woman’s eyes betray the look of defeat. She now understands fully that the idea of a man of Lefebvre’s financial muscle carrying artworks under his arm, perhaps enlisting his lady friend, maybe even his writer acquaintance … well, perhaps she understands the situation now.
Or not. Perhaps she acquiesces to Lefebvre’s will yet continues to harbor the view that Lefebvre might in fact be some kind of longhaired hi
ppie charlatan having fun at the expense of the WMA. She fades into the crowd and resumes her search for the other successful bidders.
• • •
A couple of days later, I’m sitting in Lefebvre’s white Toyota Sequoia in the driveway of his house on Sunset Drive on Salt Spring Island. We’re about to back out and swing up to the palace he calls Stonehouse, his ambitious project to transform an old resort property into an eco-friendly hangout for friends, family, and maybe even influential people, and then, eventually, into a high-end B&B. Lefebvre explains, “I figured if I have to kick people out of my place I’ve got to give them someplace they’d be happy to go to. Or in case the Dalai Lama wants to stay here, he’ll have a nice place.”
That’s the deal: entice big-name people like the Dalai Lama, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, David Suzuki, et al., to come to Salt Spring, hang out at Stonehouse, sit inside the Stone Circle, absorb the positive energy, and engage in positive dialogue about how to change the mental switching of human beings to something less destructive for our surroundings.
At one point Lefebvre tells me, “I shoot off my face about the way things are in the world. It was self-evident to me to walk the walk. I had an opportunity to make some huge differences. I know, it sounds like a post-mortem, and in a lot of ways it is a post-mortem because I lost $100 million worth of stock value and gave $40 million cash to Uncle Sam. That’s a lot of giving away money gone.”
But he’s still got enough to build the kind of castle where a man like David Suzuki might like to stay. Stonehouse is about ten miles from Sunset Drive, on the northwest side of the island. You have to drive south on Sunset, hang a left on Vesuvius Bay Road, then a right on Lower Ganges, then drive on through Ganges Harbour, right by its market and on up Fulford-Ganges Road a couple of miles. Now you’re heading southeast and looking out over the east side of the island.
Life Real Loud Page 28
