NBC Features Poker Rapist

NBC’s late-night TV show “Poker After Dark” this week features as one of the poker-playing participants a convicted rapist whom the U.S. government tried to deport.

The theme of the show this week, according to a press release from NBC, is “Hecklers Week,” and features what the TV network describes as “six of the brashest talkers in the game.”

The release then lists the six poker pros–Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr., Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Shahram Sheikhan, Gavin Smith, Jean-Robert Bellande and Sam Grizzle–but makes no mention that one of them was convicted of raping a child, served time in prison and then was the focus of a deportation effort last year by the U.S. government. =A0 The player in question is Sheikhan, a 38-year-old Iran native and Las Vegas resident who served nine months in prison and five years probation after being convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery against a 17-year-old girl in 1995.

Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which seeks out foreigners living in the U.S. who have been convicted of sex crimes against children and tries to deport them, tried to send convicted child molester Sheikhan back to Iran.

Sheikhan, who is married to an American and has a child, was arrested last August by ICE agents and held in a Las Vegas-area detention facility for five days, before posting $10,000 bail and being released.

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