Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

Castel had a final word for Lefebvre: show up on November 1 or face being charged with an additional crime — bail jumping — which could net him up to another five years tacked onto whatever he was going to get, plus another quarter million of his cash donated to Uncle Sam. Lefebvre understood. That turned out to be a non-issue because it would take more than four years for Lefebvre to get his final day in court.

Lefebvre was on tenterhooks, waiting to be sentenced. He could mix his double album, he could nurture his romance with Hilary Watson, and he could build his working relationship with the Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver, yet with the all this legal uncertainty he felt suspended in the business of life. He stewed about the injustice of it, but he had to follow Marella’s advice. There was no other way to do this except to wriggle out slowly and pay dearly to do it.

For therapy, Lefebvre decided to write a screed about his issues with the U.S. government. “The law as to internet gambling is a hypocrisy,” it said in part. “This is not to say that the individuals who are conducting my prosecution are hypocrites. I believe that they are performing their duties with the utmost good faith. They have been consummate ladies and gentlemen at every turn. But they are also officers. And their office has been set in the service of hypocrisy, supported and enforced by a gross abuse of the criminal authority, to corner a market, against America’s most fundamental value: Freedom.”

“That’s a Lot of Giving Away Money They Took Away”

Lefebvre, Hilary Watson, and I are scheduled to attend the Western Magazine Awards in Vancouver. The magazine article I wrote about him, published in Swerve magazine, the weekly glossy insert in the Calgary Herald , is up for a couple of awards. I asked him whether he might want to attend and he replied, “Sure, why not? Thanks, man.” It’s Friday, June 20, 2008, and I’ve flown on Air Canada from Toronto to meet the couple at Lefebvre’s condo on Beach Avenue, across the street from English Bay in Vancouver’s West End, just up the hill from Stanley Park. They’re flying in on a Salt Spring Air floatplane. If the tide is high they get picked up at Lefebvre’s house; if it’s low they’ve got to make the seven-mile drive to the harbor. They get dropped off either at Vancouver International or downtown, at the harbor, whichever happens to be convenient. In this case, downtown is the ticket.

It’s not a walk-up; you use a personal smart card to activate the elevator and the doors open to the fourth floor, Lefebvre’s sumptuous but dark-hued and unexpectedly gloomy flat. I get the impression he doesn’t much like the place. He calls the ornate faux Roman columns and protective gargoyles too “guido” for his taste. I wonder why he bought it and realize that perhaps he didn’t have the time — frazzled from the bust and its aftermath — for a long search. He’ll make good on his distaste: a year later he’ll sell it and buy an eleventh-floor condo near Granville Island — more his speed. Still, it’s spacious, well laid out, and appointed in the usual all-silver, all-dark-wood, rich-yuppie style.

We watch a bit of soccer on the super-sized screen before heading out in a cab. The awards night is being held at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, next to Vancouver, a tacky location for an awards banquet that celebrates feature writing — or maybe apropos.

First thing we notice at the awards show is a silent auction. Lefebvre cruises the available artworks, donated to the cause courtesy of local artists, and bids $3,000 on one piece of art I guess wouldn’t have gone for more than $300. A nice piece of post-pop art — my friend Shelley and I both were eyeing it before Lefebvre jotted down his slam bid. We look at the number, then each other, then roll our eyes and smile our little crooked smiles. He walks back and forth, writing his name into a half dozen slots for varying amounts from $3,000 down to $500. No matter what number he scrawls, Lefebvre far outbids every other name on the chits.

Judging from the amount of art on the walls of his Salt Spring Island house — and leaning against the walls on the main floor, in the basement, in the yard off to the left of the dining room sliding door, not to mention the pieces of sculpture out on the lawn overlooking the Strait of Georgia, the mermaid sculpture that plays peekaboo with the tides every day — and his Beach condo and his house in Calgary, Lefebvre buys as much this way as he does at galleries. Lefebvre buys art this way because he likes to support young artists and struggling artists. Artists, period. Whether it’s of lasting value is a matter only time will tell — and a question that probably doesn’t interest him.

The awards go on and on, beginning only after the full-course dinner is served and consumed and after master of ceremonies Steve Burgess takes the floor — literally, for there is no stage. The jokes sally forth and then collapse on the floor in a heap in front of the hapless emcee as we chow down. Now Burgess has to fight through full-stomach lethargy to knock attendees out of their narcolepsy, finally eliciting a few laughs out of the stuffed gullets. My story does not win, but one of my fellow Swerve scribes, whom I’ve just met, walks away with three Ws. We all congratulate him. He says with the prize money he and his wife can now afford a honeymoon.

Once the interminable proceedings grind to a halt, the WMA woman in charge of the auction comes over to Lefebvre. She tries to talk him into taking the artworks with him, right then and there. Twice, perhaps three times, the conversation circles around to closing the deal — tonight. “Would it be possible for you to take the works home?” she inquires, not quite sweetly. “We’d be happy to order a cab for you.”

Lefebvre isn’t having any of it. His lady friend is with him. It’s a social occasion. He doesn’t need to be bothered with carrying around works of art at midnight on a Friday night. Lefebvre detects a hint of desperation in the woman’s appeal, as if she might be worried he isn’t good for the money. While thanking him graciously for his generous bids and patronage, perhaps she might be able to settle this business with them tonight?

What this woman doesn’t comprehend is that underneath Lefebvre’s jelly-like bonhomie is bedrock. It’s bedrock made from stubbornness, the finest granite. Lefebvre makes it known that he won’t be picking up the artworks tonight. No, he won’t be taking them with him this evening, or any other evening in fact. Someone else will be doing the picking up and dropping off, and so far as he’s concerned that someone can just as easily come by on the weekend. Or Monday. Yes, if Monday would be preferable for her then that could work for Lefebvre, too. Right? Right. Or perhaps the lady would prefer he send someone around to pick them up and ship them to Salt Spring Island — would that work for her?

The woman’s eyes betray the look of defeat. She now understands fully that the idea of a man of Lefebvre’s financial muscle carrying artworks under his arm, perhaps enlisting his lady friend, maybe even his writer acquaintance … well, perhaps she understands the situation now.

Or not. Perhaps she acquiesces to Lefebvre’s will yet continues to harbor the view that Lefebvre might in fact be some kind of longhaired hippie charlatan having fun at the expense of the WMA. She fades into the crowd and resumes her search for the other successful bidders.

A couple of days later, I’m sitting in Lefebvre’s white Toyota Sequoia in the driveway of his house on Sunset Drive on Salt Spring Island. We’re about to back out and swing up to the palace he calls Stonehouse, his ambitious project to transform an old resort property into an eco-friendly hangout for friends, family, and maybe even influential people, and then, eventually, into a high-end B&B. Lefebvre explains, “I figured if I have to kick people out of my place I’ve got to give them someplace they’d be happy to go to. Or in case the Dalai Lama wants to stay here, he’ll have a nice place.”