@Howard - Do you agree that you were grossly negligent in your duties as a director, resulting in an extended period of pain and loss for thousands of people. A yes or no answer will suffice.

Does all the hate that is concentrated towards you scares you`?

Have you, at one point, feared for your physical integrity?

What are your future plans? Do you plan on coming back in the poker community?

Don`t get your hopes up he will say it was not his fault and cya at WSOP next year

Seriously, all he's gonna do is claim ignorance and blame everything on Ray. We will not get a single positive or truthful answer from this thief.

This. It makes no sense for him and all other stakeholders to do anything but blame all of it Bitar.

There's also no way he does an interview without having had some fairly intense prep done before. I doubt there's a single tough question he won't have rehearsed and be prepared for. We will hear less answers than when someone testifies to a congressional subcommittee.

Well... at least he's finally ready.

Yeah, it will be surprising if he offers much beyond that. It's all going to come off as self-serving, negating whatever apology he attempts to offer.

maybe you should do the interview instead of howard.

in before the blame is put on the black guy again.

Howard, How was Ray allowed to be the CEO and the CFO? That's pretty much never allowed in a legitimate business. I know there was a CFO in name but c'mon.

I agree - hard to see how he can discuss much in an interview right now given where they are in the legal process.

any idea when these interviews are open for us to see? Is it written or audio?

Does anyone think the interview will actually bring about any news or that he'll admit to anything? There was a recent interview on Diamondflush with Andy Bloch and his answer to everything basically was "I didn't know the whole truth. I tried to help fix the situation but couldn't." Not to imply that he was lying but it was just a very uninformative interview. I assume the Lederer interview(s) will be the same, especially because he's under legal threat and most likely super lawyer-ed up.

Q. After you learned that there wasn't $ left to cover player balances, why did you keep Ray Bitar on as CEO for another year+?

Howard,

It has been rumored you've claimed ignorance to the accounting mishaps. How can this be given:

1. You are on the BOD.
2. Your company claimed 'safe and secure' funds at least a couple years ago even though this wasn't the case.
3. FTPDoug admitted he knew of seized accounts while releasing statements to ROW players that there was nothing to worry about. There is zero % chance FTPDoug knows more than you do.
4. The shady accounting practices setup could never have been single handedly been implemented by Ray alone.
5. You helped setup the company and had to have known the regulations of cash on hand to cover players.
6. Even if you didn't know of day to day operations, during the quarterly/yearly updates to the BOD, you had to have known the accounting hole that took place 1.5 years before BF or were lied to by one/multiple individuals. BODs are given financial statements, so either you had cooked books handed to you or individuals you knew cooked those books. Which is it and what were their names/titles within the company?
7. While you were still active with the company, you knew of the company continually switching payment processors/shutting down of processors, indicating you and the board had to get creative with accounting to get passed UIGEA hurdles. How can you go from knowing that to being ignorant from everything forward when your company faced more challenges after you supposedly 'took a step back'?

Again, how can you claim ignorance to everything going on knowing what is publicly known already? Could you imagine if someone like myself went to Forbes/NY Times and hand fed them the proof that is littered on this forum?

A thorough explanation is the least you could do to address this matter.

Thanks.

Deal's got to be done. They kept quiet for 18 months.

So my question is what should he done differently, US payment processing, due diligence?

Let him lose it first.

Cause house prices always go up!

He's still facing numerous lawsuits. He's not going to answer anything here and he's not going to say anything satisfying.

Really, I'd like him to answer why he hasn't played in any public tournaments since Black Friday. I mean, he's innocent, so why is he worried?

Truth be told, this is excellent news. After they seize everything from Howard he will be spending hundreds of thousands on lawyers trying to get it back, but of course he will be unsuccessful.

So, they'll take everything and he'll spend what little he has left attempting to get it back. Since he sucks at poker, he won't be able to make a living doing that and no one will ever stake him again because he's Howard Lederer.

Honestly, this seems to be working out great. He should be dead broke and homeless within another 12 months or so. Whatever the government doesn't take, his lawyers will.

meh i would bet alot of money that howard has at least a milly buried in the desert somewhere...they have had too much time to get together "highway" money

This +5 million. If you had 40+ million in your possession for over a year, and have no jail time facing you and know the government will soon be asking for the money....don't you think you could find a place to hide enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life? He probably has $5 million sitting in Saul Goodman's office safe.

this isnt nearly as easy as you think.

Honestly cant blame anyone but himself. If he hac confronted ray maybe ft could have paid players and the governemt wouldn't be taking his house. They knew ray was stealing, should have acted on it.

Howard I know you are going to claim ignorance and innocence but is it just a coincidence that some of the biggest scams in poker history, you and your sister are involved in?