Sounds like she's saying so, with regard to Bitar's criminal proceedings. There is no conference scheduled today wrt to the civil matter. This would appear to relate to the matter of his bail.

That would make sense, and be largely irrelevant to our funds.

Do you have access to Pacer, Mondo?

Yes, I do have access to PACER. However, while checking case dockets is free, downloading pleadings, or documents attached to docket entries, is not, and I don't have a client matter number I can bill it to. ;-)

If you post the civil matter number of the case (it's at the top of previous pleadings, formatted something like 2:11-cv-3413, I'd be happy to check whether anything's been filed yet today.

Nothing has been filed yet.

Case number for the civil case is 1:11-cv-02564. Criminal case is 1:10-cr-00336

1:2011cv02564

I think that's the correct case number.

Cool, will probably check PACER a couple more times during the day today. I would hazard a guess that any request for further extension would be likely to be filed somewhat earlier in the day; actual responsive pleadings tend to be filed later in the day --- the is sort of tied to the pre-ECF days of racing to the courthouse to file your pleadings at the last minute. Seems quaint now.

http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-re...ey-sentencing/

DOJ argues for leniency in Absolute Poker Director of payment processing sentencing.

Somebody forward this to Isai and tell him to LOCK DOWN THIS DEAL.

I'm no legal genius but all this looks like is beckley ratted out people to the doj for a lighter sentence. Usually what cooperating means.

Maybe or he just was honest about what he did. Whatever he did is in that sealed document they refer to.

I'm law-noob; why do they seal documents?

Maybe...but if it's in a sealed document, it's probably more of the former, than the latter.

There's many reasons.

One, there may be sensitive personal data related to non-parties in the litigation (e.g., Social Security numbers, phone numbers, etc.)

Another is information from documents produced to opposing parties pursuant to the terms of a protective order, where the parties have agreed to not make non-public information public.

Lets all hope Bitar sings like a canary and we see warrants for Howard and Fergy.

Online poker back in the US before October, calling it now.

Really? Who's going to ram through the bill repealing UIGEA between now and then?

The poker gods of course.

Book value, probably not. Market value, perhaps. GBT was planning to put up less than the total of assets + liabilities, so they were valuing the assets as a negative number. To them , FTP was worth less than what they owed players. That's the only clear indication we have on market value, but by that time I think market value had declined from where it was immediately after BF.

There are reports that FTP originally turned down some offers shortly after they stopped operating. Perhaps if they had just accepted the first offer they could have been saved. Or possibly if the people making the offer had completed due diligence they would have walked away. It mught have been possible to save FTP. We'll never know.

See: http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/sealing_guide.pdf/$file/sealing_guide.pdf
particularly the discussion beginning on page 12 regarding pleas.

In general, documents, or whole cases, can be sealed for "good cause," an incredibly nebulous standard. It is frequently abused, in Miami, Florida the wealthy and well connected used it to have divorce cases completely disappeared; they were not assigned case numbers and there was no way to know they even existed.
My speculation, in this matter, is that the defendant's attorneys have written a letter to the USAO that contains facts and reasons for a reduced sentence that the USAO does not want made public (at this time?) but thinks the judge needs to know in order to understand why the USAO has requested the sentence it has.

I wonder if Howard or Chris were subpoenaed by the grand jury that issued the superseding indictment on Bitar. I want to think they were. If they invoked their fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, immunity may have been granted to compel their testimony.

Although, I'm not sure how Bitar wouldn't have known about it in this case. And since a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich, he would have known he was indicted again if he knew a grand jury had been summoned.

I feel dirty for just having clicked on that site.

And I'm not sure I'd agree that it is a "news source". It's fairly obviously a propaganda source. I'm sure even those who agree with the site's politics would agree that it is making no attempt at balance or comprehensive coverage. Really, it makes Fox News look credible, by comparison.

As for the article. I'm pretty sure the Fourth Amendment is not usually interpreted to mean that criminals get to keep what they stole. I'd be interested to hear more from the extreme right on the constitutionality of the current US forfeiture laws, though. I would hope for a more credible writer to make the case, though.

'GBp', with a small 'p' means Great Britain pence.

As of 2:57pm ET, no new filings on PACER for the civil case. Will check again in a couple hours.

Does that mean that the one week extension is effectively a four or five week extension?

They don't need a hearing to file motions. I'm not even sure they need a hearing to settle the case. Up to now, the only formal meeting that's happened in the civil case was the scheduling conference afaik.

Thanks to everyone keeping us up to date today on the court stuff. It is appreciated.