Two defendants in an Internet poker prosecution failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss charges against them.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York rejected arguments by John Campos, the former vice chairman of Sun First Bank in St. George, and Chad Elise that the law under which they were charged exempts them from criminal liability as financial transaction providers.

Eleven defendants were accused in April of bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling through the online companies PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.

Prosecutors claim that after the U.S. enacted a law in 2006 barring banks from processing payments to offshore gambling websites, the three companies worked around the ban to continue operating in the U.S.