Obviously, some person or persons, with economic interest and political influence, has given the order that this case be brought when others are not. Knowing their motive, which is most likely greed, will give you more insight into a probable resolution than anything you'll find in the lawyers' motions and briefs.

Most the world views the majority of governments as an tool of their domestic commercial interests (or in many cases there is a merger with those interests) that act mostly to advance and protect those interests. I think the US government is viewed in that manner, you know what Calvin Coolidge said.

Corporations still risk doing business worldwide and factor politics into their business plan. How much "exceptionalism" any nation can assert depends on its economic and military clout.

If this deal ends up failing and players are not repaid, shouldn't it be expected that ALL of team FTP give back what they have made? That means Andy Bloch, Harmen and all those that are out there playing as if nothing has happened with our money. I don't do or say anything because it feels like I should be waiting until this runs its course, but if it ends badly, those players should be excommunicated from poker and forced to give back every penny they ever took from us. Ivey and Block won plenty this WSOP. Add it to the negotiating table...........

you are naive, keep on dreaming, they dont give a **** about us.

[QUOTE=insidemanpoker;33858052]If this deal ends up failing and players are not repaid, shouldn't it be expected that ALL of team FTP give back what they have made? /QUOTE]

Its the directors who made the decsions to issue the dividedns that would be expected to return the money. In addition, legally and morally, the courts can go after the personal assets of the directors. That is the best case senario and the guilty ones would pay and pay dearly. They would lose everything they ever had. If that didn t cover the debt, then thru the court system they may be able to reclaim dividends to other shareholders

$444 million was paided out in dividends and players are owed 300 million. They don t need all the dividend money back. Only the amount to pay the players. This is where I say go after the directors who made the decsions on the dividends, they are the ones in the wrong.

It will certainly play on their conscience, but I doubt the majority of them would do anything about it.

Most poker professionals care about 1 thing more then anything else.... money, and also to a certain extent image. So we may see less of them in the public eye, for example in popular television programs or not being interviewed as much.

Lol, I am not prosecuting the case and I don't work for the government. But I am telling you that the prosecutor did not outright lie to the judge about whether there was an agreement in place for Bitar to come in, and for you to keep implying that he did, just to make your theory right, is pretty lol in itself.

Fwiw, I never tried to fool you, or anyone else, about anything. Everything I posted about the GBT deal was correct at the time I wrote/said it. Daddy Tapie had plenty of money, it was vetted before the process began. Son Tapie dragged the process out looking for some outside money to make Daddy happy. He couldn't get it from the current FTP shareholders like he wanted to, especially thru the B.O.D. because DOJ forbid it. That all happened, and even though they tried to slip through a crappy deal for the players in the end, if they had known that there would be an option that was better for the players, and if they knew that they werent the only game in town, and if they thought that DOJ and FTP would walk, they probably would have paid up much more. The stalling and the greed did him in in the end. It wouldnt surprise me in the least if he was saying prayers that PS doesnt complete this deal so he could try to swoop in again.

Occasionally your gut will be wrong, like now.

Seriously?
Kaplan was already the assigned Judge.

I found this recent press release from the DOJ about a similar style forfeiture action against a company for securities fraud. There are some important distinctions between the two cases, but generally speaking, the actions are factually similar.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pres...tribution.html

Cliffs: $ 2 billion forfeited. $700 million returned to victims.

Most interesting parts:

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “More than just prosecuting criminals who engage in fraud, this Office strives to return as much as possible to their victims. The return today of over $728 million to the victims of the Adelphia fraud was accomplished through the relentless efforts of our Asset Forfeiture Unit."

---------

In case the reports are true that the DOJ is somehow holding up this deal or politicians are pressuring them to be harsh or whatever the heck it is: I think everyone in this thread should tweet, e-mail, or fb the DOJ with this quote reminding Preet of what his stated goals are. Also, this quote from DOJ FAQ on returning forfeited assets to crime victims, "Returning assets to the victims of financial crime is priority in the Department’s Asset Forfeiture Program."

DF shoot this down if the reports are untrue to your knowledge.

---------

Serious parallel to the current situation (Except for the large difference of Pokerstars being an Isle of Man company and Adelphia being a colorado corporation)

"In addition, in April 2005, the Government entered into a non-prosecution agreement with Adelphia [the corporate entity- individual owners were criminally prosecuted), resolving potential corporate criminal charges against Adelphia and its subsidiaries. As part of the non-prosecution agreement, the Government agreed that the cable systems forfeited by the Rigas family would be turned over to Adelphia in exchange for the company’s payment of over $700 million in cash and securities to be used to compensate victims.:

(Assets of Full Tilt would be turned over in exchange for Pokerstars payment of $700 + million)

Remission: : (This case took about 8 years. Obviously, reports indicate the DOJ was looking for players to be repaid faster under the Tapie deal, at least.)

"The complex process of notifying the large number of potential victims, processing more than 13,000 petitions, verifying pecuniary losses, and recommending a pro rata distribution of the forfeited funds to the Attorney General was managed on behalf of the Department of Justice by the Adelphia Victim Fund (“AVF”). The AVF is operated by Richard C. Breeden, Chairman of Richard C. Breeden & Co. and former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), who was appointed Special Master by the Department of Justice. The final determination of eligible victims and their loss amounts was made by the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section (“AFMLS”), in the Criminal Division, through its Victim Asset Recovery Program, which granted approximately 8,500 petitions for remission submitted by the victims of the Adelphia fraud and authorized the transfer of the proceeds of the forfeited assets, plus accrued interest, to the victims on a pro rata basis"

A couple things.

Anyone blames the DoJ is just being silly. Going on about real problems etc. The world don't stop just cause poker players get jacked. Yes it sucks for us all and the government should have left be but the law is the law.


Also, should the deal fail sadly we won't be seeing our funds.

I know this is old news, and I know the deal was going to be bad for the players, but was it bad for all players just US or just ROW?

I've read your articles, and for some reason don't remember that part.

Does anyone else chuckle to themselves when DF starts a post with 'Seriously?' lol

You should trademark it!

I appreciate all the legal digging, study, etc. that goes on in this thread, but I can't be the only one wondering what half the people ITT are going to do with their lives once this is over.

I can't shake the impression that people ITT are just spending hours a day reading this thread, scouring court documents, searching for new rumors, etc...

just row

http://diamondflushpoker.com/2012/04...ct-vs-fiction/

I've just had a skim though the above article, there seems to be no mention of how US players' balances would have been handled. But ROW players with a larger balance would have got shafted.

They can always move over to the legislation forum.

NO.

I realize that pesky little facts will get in the way of all that tin foil, but the facts are this:

Bitar surrenders.
Bitar appears before Magistrate Judge Freeman. A conference is already scheduled before Kaplan for the following week.
Bitar is arraigned (Freeman)
Defense requests bail, $ 250K plus x number of FRP's as already worked out with pre-trial services. Family and friends on hand to sign and pay in anticipation of pre-trial services recommendation being accepted.
Prosecution opposes bail, asks for detention.
Hearin held.
Freeman agrees that bail should be granted, but heavier than was suggested by pre-trial services.
Freeman raises amount to $ 2.5M, including $1M secured, agrees to additional FRP's if needed.
This is late on a Monday night July 2.
Defense asks for release pending the additional funds being secured within a week or two.
Prosecution opposes.
Freeman agrees to remand Bitar while additional resources are collected and vetted. Parties assume this could take as much as a week, with a federal holiday in between.
Just in case the bail would be posted before the Monday before Kaplan, Govt requests that they be noticed, in case they want to appeal. Granted.
Family, friends leave NYC to collect deeds, etc. to meet higher amount.
Thursday July 5, increased bail is ready to be posted. Government advised.
District Judge Paul Engelmayer sits for bail hearing.
Government files memo in support of detention.
Engelmayer states that he believes this not to be a detention situation.
The bond was posted, all conditions satisfied, including the additional amounts requested.
Engelmayer says he agrees with the increased conditions/amount but also agrees to stay Bitar's release over the weekend, as requested by the prosecution, so that Kaplan can make the ruling on the government's appeal or otherwise rule.
Monday July 9, Kaplan takes the bench and immediately recuses himself.
Later that day, Engelmayer gets the hearing back.
In those hours, the prosecution, still prepared with their appeal, agree that Bitar be released if he agrees to submit to electronic monitoring and agrees to complete full and truthful financial disclosures. He must remain in NYC for 48 hours for the government to assure these disclosures are complete.These disclosures were an important part of the government's opposition to bail.
in addition to the $2.5M and other conditions, the electronic monitoring and the disclosures were what made the government agree to the bail.

The above facts are on the record and irrefutable. I know them to be a true rendition, because I was there.
Now please tell me again, where the tin foil comes in to make your theory correct and the above false?

SDNY can face Kaplan's wrath at any time, not just one case, and in fact has, in this very case.
The same happens with defense attorneys.
In many cases and with many judges.
Its part of the job.

If the DOJ doesn't oppose bail, his lawyers would have shown up at the procedural conference and with no ruling to make, Kaplan would be under no obligation to recuse himself.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, just ROW. But we don't know for sure if US would have gotten 100% back?

100% payback for US players. Payout would of been done by DOJ and players had to prove they made the deposits, and give proof of who they are. I assume drivers licsense, copy of a bill with a address.

Most of the ROW would of gotten paided back with 90 days.



for both US and ROW players, 94.9% would of gotten a full refund within 90 days. The balance was the high rollers, I don t remember what the deal was with them as GBT wanted to do something different. DOJ wanted everyone paided back in full in 90 days.

At best, US players would have had to apply to the Asset Forfeiture Money Laundering Section(AFMLS), criminal division, DOJ for remission.
It is unclear how much would have been available in the fund to make payments to the US players. Some people think it could have been a total of the $ 80M expected from Tapie, others think more, others less.AFAIK, SDNY would never commit to an amount. In the end, its AFMLS who has complete discretion.
In addition, any ROW players likely could have opted to apply for the remission as well rather than go the play/pay to release your own funds rakeback scheme. There would have been contingincies on what amount GBT would have had to pay DOJ to compensate for those ROW payments, and there were multiple different scenarios, none of which would have amounted to full payment for all ROW players via the process.

players with big rolls pretty much had to play with 100% rakeback for years.

the sick part being actually having to deposit only to get some money back (and maybe losing it)

Dm sent. Answer it Andy.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you I would happily stop all this work (I can't even begin to count the hours in the last year) if players just can be repaid

Sorry, I found the right information in the thread cliff notes.

Sigh.

Whether bail was granted, opposed, appealed or stenciled on the side of a circus tent, the case remaining as to Bitar would have been on Kaplan's docket, and once Jack Baughman of Paul, Weiss, et al filed his appearance, as he had to, Kaplan would have had to make a recusal decision. The recusal had nothing to do with the bail.