He’s gone all in.
The fugitive CEO of an online poker parlor was grabbed by the feds at Kennedy Airport yesterday after returning from Ireland to face a slew of criminal charges.
Ray Bitar, 40, is charged with violating Internet gambling laws and defrauding customers of FullTiltPoker.com of more than $430 million.
The site was one of three shut down by the FBI last year on a day that online gamblers have since dubbed “Black Friday.”
At the arraignment yesterday in Manhattan federal court, prosecutor Arlo Devlin-Brown said Bitar faced “decades” in the slammer if convicted.
Devlin-Brown said Bitar ran Full Tilt as “little more than a Ponzi scheme” — falsely assuring bettors that their money would be kept in “segregated accounts” — and personally reaped at least $40 million from the scam.
In a prepared statement, Bitar said: “I know a lot of people are very angry at me . . . I believe we are near the end of a very long road, and I will continue to do whatever is required to get the players repaid, and I hope that it will happen soon.”
Bitar was ordered held on $2.5 million bond after pleading not guilty, and is due back in court on Monday.