United States v. Martin Mendelsohn, United States of America v. Robert Bentsen

Martin Mendelsohn and Robert Bentsen appeal convictions for conspiring to transport and aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 , 1953. The item they transported was a computer disk containing a program to aid in bookmaking. Both defendants were sentenced to three years probation. We affirm the judgments.

BACKGROUND

Mendelsohn and Bentsen mailed a computer floppy disk from Las Vegas, Nevada to California, to one Michael Felix, an undercover policeman posing as a bookmaker. The disk was encoded with a computer program called SOAP (Sports Office Accounting Program).

SOAP provided a computerized method for recording and analyzing bets on sporting events. The floppy disk had limited storage capacity; the instructions consequently directed the user to copy the program from the floppy disk onto the hard disk of a computer, and then to use the hard disk to run the computer operation and store data. Once copied into the computer, SOAP could be used to record and review information about game schedules, point spreads, scores, customer balances, and bets. A SOAP user could calculate changing odds and factor in a…