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4 people arrested in beating, robbery of poker champ Duhamel

Four people were arrested in the Dec. 21 beating and home invasion of Jonathan Duhamel that left the World Series of Poker champion without his winner’s bracelet, a Rolex watch and an undisclosed amount of cash.

Police arrested three men and a woman, Mark David, a spokesman for the Agglomeration de Longueuil police department said today in a telephone interview.

The 24-year-old Duhamel, who won the No-Limit Texas Hold’Em world championship, $8.9 million and the diamond-encrusted gold bracelet in November 2010, was attacked by two masked men at his home in Boucherville, Quebec, at around 9 a.m. local time on Dec. 21, Yves Bouchard, Duhamel’s agent, said in a telephone interview last week.

The men took the bracelet, a Rolex watch given to Duhamel by PokerStars.com in honor of his tournament win and cash, Bouchard said.

A 20-year-old woman arrested on Dec. 24 is facing charges of conspiracy, according to David. Two men, ages 22 and 26, were arrested two days later in a Montreal suburb, and are facing charges of breaking and entering, assault, forcible confinement and possession of stolen goods, he said.

A fourth suspect, a 20-year-old man, was arrested this morning and is being questioned by detectives. David, who called the investigation “on-going,” declined to provide names for any of the suspects.

“The initial call was that two men had gone to Duhamel’s home,” David said. “They rang the doorbell, and when he opened the door they beat him up and they stole goods from his house. So conspiracy would be setting this up or planning the event. There’s four people in this event, so somebody at some point planned this.”

Watch Recovered

Duhamel’s watch was recovered, and the bracelet is still missing, David said.

“I won’t hide the fact that these two items have a much larger value for me than their commercial value, and I really hope we will be able to retrieve them,” Duhamel said in a news release following the attack.

Duhamel became Canada’s first World Series of Poker main- event champion when he won the tournament after two hours of heads-up play in Las Vegas to outlast a field that began with 7,319 participants.

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