That’s the story and he’s sticking to it.

Pleading no contest and saying goodbye to that much money means one of two things. Either:

1) He made so much money from his legally questionable online gambling business that $2.2 million is simply an affordable nuisance “cost of doing business”

or

2) This was a deal worked out not just with prosecutors (who wanted to send Lee to jail on felony charges) but also with Lee’s top customers, who supposedly included some of the most powerful people in San Antonio, including the former mayor, in which case they might have let him know they would make it up to him.

NOTE: Link fixed.