Friday, Oct. 5, 2007

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Some charges dropped in snake murder plot

By Sarah Polson

The man accused of planning to kill the owner of the Amateur Poker Tour in Wheat Ridge, Colo., using rattlesnakes in a box, will no longer be facing two felony charges in the case.

Christopher Steelman is accused of plotting with Herbert Beck to murder Matt Sowash by locking his legs in a box filled with rattlesnakes and then leaving him to die on a hiking trail.

All because Beck believed that Sowash owed him $60,000, reported Mile High News.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigations reported that Beck was an investor and business partner in Sowash's Amateur Poker Tour. To extract the money he thought he was owed, Beck planned to force Sowash into the box filled with rattlesnakes.

Sowash learned about the alleged plot and went to the CBI, which was investigating Sowash for potentially illegal poker operations in Colorado.

Steelman will still face a charge of felony extortion, while the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping were dropped. His bond was also lowered from $500,000 to $10,000.

Sowash's Amateur Poker Tour arranged games of Texas Hold'em in bars along the Front Range in Colorado. Sowash is no longer the owner of the tour.

Related Article: Men Plot to Murder Another with Snakes over Poker Debt

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