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| Poker Headlines Serious discussion about news from the poker world. |
07-02-2012, 12:20 PM
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#1
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stranger
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Predicting the Future
Posts: 4
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Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Raymond Bitar surrendered today (July 2, 2012) in New York. Also included is the email that went out to the staff in Dublin.
Quote:
To all Dublin Staff,
By now you probably have heard that I have returned to the US to deal with civil and criminal case that are pending against me in New York. We have all worked hard over the last 15 months to preserve Full Tilt’s assets and potential in order to provide for the repayment of all players, and that continues to be our top priority. It is as important as ever that we all do everything possible to make that happen and, hopefully our deal with Poker Stars will very soon make our goal a reality. My return to the US is part of this process.
I am particularly grateful to all of you here in Dublin for your hard work, patience and understanding during this difficult time. I believe that your hard work and dedication should not go unrecognized, and we have made arrangements for Poker Stars to guarantee all July salaries. You should therefore have no concern about coming to work during this period. After that, we expect that your employment contracts will be assumed by the buyer of the company’s assets.
For those that need to reach me, I expect to continue to be available by email and phone starting late Monday, New York time.
In the meantime, please refer any operational questions to **REDACTED**, and any HR questions to **REDACTED**.
Thank you all again.
Kind regards,
Raymond J Bitar
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07-02-2012, 05:58 PM
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#2
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Pooh-Bah
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: 12 hr. Cashouts w/BTC.....F the DOJ
Posts: 3,604
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marco QJ
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07-02-2012, 06:58 PM
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#3
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: 20% discount on the above: ANLH20
Posts: 9,614
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government - Confirmed by EGR & Poker News
Last edited by Professionalpoker; 07-04-2012 at 02:31 AM.
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07-02-2012, 07:26 PM
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#4
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centurion
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Posts: 152
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government - Confirmed by EGR & Poker News
Via the Associated Press:
http://www.lvrj.com/business/full-ti...161144445.html
Prosecutors sought detention without bail. A magistrate judge says she's inclined to grant bail.
A prosecutor calls Bitar a flight risk since it took him 14 months to return to the United States from Ireland to face charges. He says Bitar also might flee because he could face decades in prison if he's convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud and operating an illegal gambling business.
His lawyers say he has cooperated with authorities trying to recover money for online gamblers.
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07-03-2012, 10:57 AM
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#5
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White Knight of FL Poker
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Bluffing the Space-Time Continuum
Posts: 7,765
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
For those who want to just cut to the chase, here are the only important posts I found among the NVG thread:
Diamond Flush's news article:
http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/07...charges-filed/
Quote:
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Originally Posted by DoTheMath
Originally Posted by DoTheMath
Some observations from a first scan of the superceeding indictment:
The indictment is specifically for Bitar and Burnick. It adds 3 new counts of wire fraud against players, divides the previous money laundering conspiracy charge into two separate charges - for promotion and use of funds, and makes it clear that Burnick is facing counts WRT both FTP and PokerStars. Together they are facing $2.5B in forfeiture allegations.
The unnamed co-conspirator "CC-1" is most likely Lederer, but may be Ferguson. CC-1 is a well-known professional poker player and part owner of FTP who at all times relevent to the indictment co-managed Tiltware LLC with Bitar.
The second unamed co-Conspirator, "CC-2" is FTP's Director of Finance. I had posted a long time ago that the person in this role must have known about the misrepresentations to players and the AGCC.
Given that there are new charges against Bitar and Burtnick, It would seem possible that there could be a new indictment for CC-1 and CC-2.
For those who think that all the owners are to blame and should be charged, the indictment makes it clear that Bitar and CC-1 misled the owners into thinking the distributions were legit. In a March 15 2008 conference wcall with the owners of Tiltware LLC, Bitar and CC-1 told owners that it was essential to keep >= 100% of player balances as cash in company accounts. this did not include any of the cash in procesor accounts. It seems that they never in fact actually did this.
For those that think that FTP could have kept operating and paid all players if it hadn't been for Black Friday, the indictment claims that internal projections at the beginning of February 2011 showed that FTP would run out of money "within months". Despite this, Bitar continued to approve dstributions of about $10M. Between his share of distributions, directors fees and salary, Bitar seems to have been drawing well over $1M per month.
As of June 10 2012, FTP was receiving deposits of $8-9M per week from ROW players and had a $12.5M backlog in withdrawl requests and $16.6M in other payments owing, but only had $2.1M in available funds. Incoming player deposits were being used to pay off portions of player withdrawls and other bills, as well as covering operating expenses. Despite this, after BF, Bitar and Burtnick between them received "multiple millions of dollars" in payments.
The indictment contineus to assert the existence of a sub-entity known as "Full Tilt Poker Ltd." and implies it is an Irish company.
After Sun First Bank (Campos' operation) ceased processing payments in late 2010 at the request of regulators, FTP relied on two struggling single-branch banks in Illinois: All American Bank and New City Bank. It seems like All American Bank requested a $1M bribe in order to process payments. All three banks have since failed, costing the FDIC over $70M.
FTP claimed to have player money in segregated accounts as early as March 2008, but never actually segregated player funds.
FTP's Director of Finance was instructed to lie to the AGCC about cash on hand in monthly reports. Among other things, he claimed as cash on hand over $100M not actually recevied from prcessors, including amounts stolen by the processors and amounts seized by the DoJ. In his report to the AGCC covering August 2010, he claimed $370.8M cash on hand, against $322.5M player balances. In fact, FTP only had $124.3M cash on hand. Eight months before BF, FTP was already $198M short of obligations to players and $246M short of its claimed cash postion.
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07-03-2012, 01:53 PM
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#6
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banned
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 76
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Is that e-mail confirmed legit?
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07-04-2012, 02:29 AM
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#7
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banned
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 257
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
It's legit, have a friend who still works at FTP.
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07-04-2012, 12:50 PM
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#8
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Referee
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Living on the air in 3 forums
Posts: 15,580
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Diamond Flush hints at the possible reason Bitar returned, knowing he was going to be arrested.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Diamond Flush
It is expected those cosignors would include those friends and family of Bitar who were in the courtroom including his mother, his brother and sister (both of which have a history of working at Full Tilt) and friends and spouses, the same friends and family that paced the corridors for hours waiting for the arraignment to happen.
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Bernie Madoff said when he was arrested, the Feds (and it is some of the same people involved) told him if he didn't confess and accept prison, they were going to arrest his entire family that had anything to do with the business and put them in prison, taking all of their money as tainted. So I believe it had nothing with Bitar's "noble" concern with FTP's customers, but rather his real concern about his family.
That's why he accepted a deal where he had no guarantees about further charges or guarantees about sentence recommendations, IMO.
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07-04-2012, 12:57 PM
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#9
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: 20% discount on the above: ANLH20
Posts: 9,614
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
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07-09-2012, 07:29 PM
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#10
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grinder
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 507
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
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07-10-2012, 11:45 AM
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#11
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journeyman
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 258
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Scary ****... "Conspiracy to defraud banks" .. 30 years.
All those other charges of 20 years for fraud... Moral of the story: Dont f**k with money.
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07-14-2012, 05:51 PM
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#12
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grinder
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 420
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
Moral of the story: If you **** with the US govt, better make sure you have tons of extra cash to buy your way out.
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08-05-2012, 09:01 PM
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#13
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centurion
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 153
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Re: Ray Bitar (FTP CEO) Surrenders to US Government
So nothing for the banks that made this all possible?
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