There has been a lot of chatter among Connecticut poker players the past few days regarding allegations of Jay stealing money from the dealers tip jar at Foxwoods. Anyone who plays on the east coast knows how much everyone respects Jay, and how majority of players are good friends with him, which makes this even more of a surprise.

The UAW Local 2121 released this statement on their facebook page this evening:

" Attention All Poker Dealers:

What I am about to inform you all is highly disturbing and very upsetting to me and all who have been involved with this process.
First off I would like to thank George, Eric and Angela for all their hard and diligent work in taking care of the Poker Dealers concerning this issue.

We had a theft in the Poker Room of tournament tip money by Jay Newmun. He was hired by Foxwoods sometime back as a live video blogger to cover daily poker tournaments. He was caught just before Christmas after video coverage was reviewed and subsequently arrested and charged with the crime of theft after he confessed to the crime.

After meeting with a lead investigator at Foxwoods it was determined that Mr. Newmun on both Dec. 9th and 14th was observed with similar behavior on these dates consistent to the behavior the day he was caught. Last week he was presented in court and applied for Accelerated Rehabilitation AR for the theft of $700 of dealer toke money. In the State of Ct you are given one free pass in regards to crimes such as this where if you have no prior criminal history you are eligible for the AR Program.
We have requested a review of the film to see if the toke box on both the 9th and 14th is visible on camera to see if indeed money was in the box and either disturbed or taken by Mr. Newmun. If we can find evidence of this behavior we will proceed to contact the State Police again and ask for this case to again be reviewed for the possibility of him being rearrested for this crime.

This individual has been barred by both the Ct State and Mashantucket Police. I can assure all that this person will never again step foot on Foxwoods property. Also a letter is being drafted by the lead investigator of which will be forwarded to the World Poker Tour WPT. Mr. Newmun has been employed by the WPT and its imperative that they be informed of his actions and subsequent behavior. Further this information will be processed through Griffin Investigators whom will notify all casinos of these actions.
The money has been returned to the Poker Tournament Pool as George, Angela and Eric took care of this on Monday.

Please be assured that we will keep you informed of any updates concerning this despicable behavior.

Thank you / Posted by Billy "

https://www.facebook.com/Local2121


Waiting to hear more on this, but still crazy.

No idea of true, but stealing in a casino and thinking it won't be on 20+ cameras deserves a Degen-Darwin Award.

0 returns for court records in connecticut, doubt it's real.

I don't believe it. You'd have to be pretty dumb to steal in a casino.

" In the State of Ct you are given one free pass in regards to crimes such as this where if you have no prior criminal history you are eligible for the AR Program."

Wonder how he did this?

The dealers clip their tip boxes to the table right next to them when they sit down. idk how the dealer wouldn't notice.

Do you guys think maybe this thread could be frozen/taken down to give time to verify that this is actually real? It would really suck to trash Jay when pretty much everyone who has had any interaction with him likes him.

-naïve friend obviously hoping there's a mistake

Nobody who can operate a camera or write a blog would be stupid enough to steal $700 from a casino. Hell, nobody employed at all should be stupid enough to steal $700. IF you're gonna steal something infront of a billion cameras at least make it worth more than a new iphone.

Is it Jay Newmun or Newnum?

Someone can't spell.

I don't see it on the union website.
http://region9a.uaw.org/local2121/

+1 hoping this is a mistake. I have always really liked Jay and hope this isn't true. Sadly, it seems legit at a quick glance.

References to the video footage are kind of vague/confusing, so I guess there is hope there.

Even if this is true, hopefully it was just a weak moment during a tough time in his life. Clearly this isn't an excuse, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt as much as I can.

Edit-it did say tip boxes, thought it was from tournament tips..

What a dumb ass if true!

Hacked Facebook?

This, plus the lack of common sense one must possess to do such a thing, makes me skeptical.

I also consider Jay a good friend of mine. Perhaps I've demonstrated a poor judgement of character in the past, but I'd be shocked if this was true. Jay stealing from a dealer's tip jar? No ****ing way. I'd bet money against it.

Every one of these threads have posts like this...

Fine. Maybe my opinion doesn't count for much. Just count me among the sad ones in the non-zero chance that this turns out to be true.

I wouldn't have thought someone like Jedi would think he could get away with this?

wow

games are getting tougher, he's just trying to increase his hourly any way he can.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Damn thats messed up. It is hard to believe someone would be that stupid.

that's a lot of bong packs

Handled by Mashantucket court maybe?

I believed it at first, but starting to doubt this.

On the "believe it" side, the message came from the Local 2121 Facebook page, which appears to be authentic, and has existed for a long time.

However, it describes his being caught "just before Christmas".

Just looked at his Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhoJedi

He was consistently tweeting every day in the weeks before, during, and after Christmas, mostly about Star Wars geek stuff. You would have thought he would have vanished from Twitter for at least a day if this really happened.

The odd thing is that the first extended period of being MIA from Twitter is right now. He hasn't tweeted since January 5, which is unlike him. However, that doesn't correspond with the timeline described in the Facebook post.

It's possible that someone who dislikes him knows that he's gone/unavailable, and is using this opportunity to slam him.

It's also possible that this is true, and he's enough of a sociopath to keep tweeting about Star Wars geekdom as if his whole career isn't crashing down around him, but who knows...

So weird.

Pretty much 3 possibilities here:

1) The Local 2121 page was hacked and this was a prank on Newnum

2) Someone at Local 2121 was given bad info and is foolishly passing it on without checking

3) It's true

I'm not seeing any tweets Dec. 16-17.