I was watching a TV show and the guy runs up a whole bunch of gambling debts. So to pay off his bookie he steals money from a bank. Of course the money’s serial numbers are recorded and the bookie winds up in jail and the bookie fingers the guy and puts him in jail.
I was just wondering would this take the guy off the hook for owing the bookie money, or would the bookie say that he still owes him the money cause he paid in stolen cash.
Well there aren’t any hard fast rules for this sort of thing, but I’d imagine that if using the said stolen bills resulted in any “heat” for the bookie, then the person who got them in trouble is pretty much toast.
in pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis et possidendis
“Where both are guilty the defendant is in the better position.”
Courts will not enforce a contract to do something illegal. Therefore, if the illegal contract is breached, the court will not enforce it by making the breaching party pay. Assuming for the moment the bookmaking is illegal (as it is in the US but I guess not in the UK) no court will enforce his debt. If bookie tried to sue the guy who owed him, the court would say in pari delicto dumbass.
Outside of the legal sphere, he should keep a close eye on his kneecaps in case his bookie is “connected.”
In case? Wouldn’t a bookie have to be connected almost by definition? If he can’t use legal means to force his customers to pay up, he’d have to use illegal means or go bankrupt very quickly.
Almost all bookies are connected. There’s a “street tax” on doing such things, and if you’re not paying the neighborhood wiseguy his percentage then you won’t be bookmaking very long. If you somehow have been and you’ve not been paying then the payments are enforced retroactively. You’d better have some serious cash on hand pretty quickly, but even then you’d be fucked. Once a wiseguy smells cash on you he’ll do anything he has to in order to get his hands on your cash until you’re dead, busted out, or totally in his pocket.