$22 million embezzled! – WPT Champion Dennis Blieden confesses guilty

In February 2018 Dennis Blieden could celebrate big. At the L.A. Poker Classics, the hitherto undescribed hand left 492 competitors behind in the poker scene and defeated defending champion Toby Lewis in the heads-up.

For his triumph, the US-American collected exactly 1 million dollars, but a good year later, there is nothing left of this fame.

On the contrary, Blieden is facing a long prison sentence. On July 11th of this year, Blieden was arrested because he was accused of embezzling money from StyleHaul as a controller and deputy finance director.

At that time it became known that Blieden had used money from the company between October 2015 and March 2019 to pay buy-ins from poker tournaments and other sums.

Now the 30-year-old was on trial and admitted that he had actually withdrawn millions of dollars from the company in recent years and falsified its balance sheets accordingly.

Among other things, he bought nearly $8.5 million in cryptocurrencies and wrote over $1.2 million in checks that he used to pay other poker players.

According to his confession, Blieden is now responsible for, among other things, the use of false identities and wire transfer fraud. There is still a little time before the judgement is pronounced in March 2020, but he already has an idea of what will blossom for him.

As a maximum sentence, he is threatened with 22 years in prison, but before that, there is still the last hearing.

In June of this year, Blieden achieved his last cash for a long time at the partypoker MILLIONS Las Vegas. He finished 17th and received $35,000 in prize money.