Lawyer Says Online Poker Led to Robbery

Somewhere in a hectic schedule that included being president of his Lehigh University sophomore class, playing second-chair cello in the university orchestra and working at the chaplain's office, Greg Hogan developed a secret habit. But the hobby quickly became an addiction that led Hogan to lose about $5,000. It was that addiction that led him last week into a Wachovia bank in Allentown, where he handed a teller a note and calmly walked out with $2,871 that wasn't his, says his lawyer, John J. Waldron.

Allentown police said Hogan confessed to the robbery. Now the 19-year-old son of a Baptist minister faces up to 20 years in prison on bank robbery charges, and his lawyer says the nationwide poker craze is partly to blame. "This is one of the nicest kids I've ever met, but his gambling addiction led him to make a terrible, terrible mistake," Waldron said. "There's so much good in this kid. It easily outweighs this one bad mistake."

William N. Thompson, professor of public policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, isn't among them. Thompson said the poker craze had arrived and Hogan was another of its victims. However, observers say that online poker rooms should not be held accountable for people failing to seek help for their own addictions, nor for actions not based on the internet.