Rutger Hennen‘s life took a dramatic flip earlier this month. The Dutchman was just lately ranked thirtieth in Quote journal’s Prime 100 Younger Self-Made Millionaires and had change into a World Poker Tour champion after taking down the WPT Prime Amsterdam Principal Occasion for €209,775, and had began touring far and vast enjoying poker. Any desires of world poker domination are presently paused as a result of Hennen finds himself behind bars in a Netherlands jail.
In 2017, Hennen rented a van and bought stand-up chairs and customized recliners to the aged. The enterprise flourished and loved common earnings of €6.4 million over three years. Vendis Capital, a European non-public fairness fund, added Hennen’s firm, Meubelzorg, to its huge portfolio in June 2023, sending Hennen’s internet value skyward to €50 million.
Hennen had a handful of reside poker match cashes on his Hendon Mob profile between 2011 and 2019, however started hitting the desk extra repeatedly following his windfall. He gained the €1,100 WPT Amsterdam Principal Occasion in March 2024 for €209,775, traveled to Eire for the Irish Poker Open, and extra just lately completed thirty first within the €5,300 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte-Carlo Principal Occasion. That journey to Monaco will probably be Hennen’s final for not less than six months.
A Fateful Night time in June 2019
June 19, 2019, nearly 5 years earlier than Hennen grew to become a WPT champion, he drove his Porsche Cayenne at excessive velocity via an intersection, hitting a 15-year-old woman who was crossing that part of highway along with her bicycle. {The teenager} died immediately.
A court docket discovered Hennen responsible of the woman’s dying and imposed a five-month jail sentence and an 18-month driving ban. Nonetheless, the Public Prosecution Service appealed towards the unique sentence, claiming Hennen was utilizing his cell phone previous to the collision. Hennen additionally appealed, asking for group service in lieu of jail time, however the court docket elevated his sentence to 6 months, plus a two-year driving ban.
Hennen appealed his case to the Supreme Court docket, however the judges had been unrelenting. They ordered him to serve a six-month jail sentence and give up his driving license for 2 years.
In response to sources near Quote journal, Hennen reported to jail earlier this month.
Different Poker Gamers Responsible of Flouting the Legislation
Sadly, Hennen isn’t the primary poker participant to seek out themselves swapping the poker tables for a spell behind bars.
Darren Woods, a former 888poker-sponsored professional, who gained a $2,000 No-Restrict Maintain’em Six-Handed occasion on the 2011 World Collection of Poker (WSOP), was jailed for 15 months in January 2015 after a court docket discovered him responsible of a number of frauds towards on-line poker rooms and on-line fee processors. British authorities confiscated £911,217 from Woods and gave him a six-month deadline to pay a further £283,673 to an unnamed Gibraltar-based firm. Prosecutors believed Woods’ actions earned him a lot bigger earnings.
In 2015, Christian Lusardi was ordered to spend 5 years behind bars after he counterfeited match chips used throughout the Borgata Winter Poker Open. Lusardi was caught flushing 494 pretend T5,000 and 9 pretend T25,000 chips down the bathroom of his lodge room. Lusardi was launched on parole after nearly eight months in jail.
Extra just lately, in July 2021, information broke of a high-stakes poker participant being arrested in Ibiza after the non-public jet they had been touring on was discovered to comprise greater than 1.5 kilos of narcotics and greater than $10,000 in varied currencies. The perpetrator was wildly reported as being Salman Behbehani, who match the newspaper report’s description of the arrested man.
Though there was no information concerning the case or whether or not Behbehani was concerned, the poker professional has not cashed in a reside occasion since August 2018 regardless of averaging seven scores per 12 months over the previous ten years.
