“I’m being arrested federally for winning on a slot machine,” he said. “It’s just like if someone taught you how to count cards, which we all know is not illegal. You know. Someone told me that there are machines that had programming that gave a player an advantage over the house. And that’s all there is to it.…

“Who would not win as much money as they could on a machine that says, ‘Jackpot’? That’s the whole idea!”

In short, the casinos authorized defendants to play video poker. What the casinos did not do was to authorize defendants ‘to obtain or alter information’ such as previously played hands of cards. To allow customers to access previously played hands of cards, at will, would remove the element of chance and obviate the whole purpose of gambling. It would certainly be contrary to the rules of poker.

The case began in February 2011, when Stuart says he and his wife got the Kim Dotcom treatment after about 30 local Arizona law enforcement agents wearing SWAT gear and camouflage dress — some of them with bushes attached to their shoulders to blend into the woods around his house — descended on his home and threatened to send him and his wife to prison for 35 years if he didn’t cooperate.

The search warrant used in the raid said Stuart and his wife were engaged in money laundering, operating an illegal enterprise and engaging in the promotion of gambling. Stuart has tried to obtain a copy of the affidavit used to get the search warrant, but it’s currently sealed.

Although Daniel R. Alonso, chief assistant in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, was reluctant to discuss the terms of the confidential plea agreement or how his office planned to implement them, he insisted there was nothing unlawful about what was proposed.

“The provision you have questioned is perfectly consistent with the obligations of all law enforcement officials to follow state and federal law to secure evidence of criminal conduct,” Alonso said in an e-mail statement. “The staff of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office involved in this case, both prosecutors and investigators, have behaved ethically and consistent with their obligation to seek justice in every case.”