I said this hours ago. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=379. I'm going to applaud myself on the great read on exactly what the US Attorney's argument was for not letting him out on bail, before Diamond Flush told us.

It seems that the DOJ probably refused to agree to a settlement until he turned himself in. So he could have sat back and tried to get them to concede to adding more charges, which they wouldn't, or he could realize he is beat and fold his hand and not put all of us through any more misery than he already has, which is what I think he did (while hoping they didn't add charges, but knowing it was possible).

I'm just crossing my fingers they aren't playing that kind of hardball with Isai, though Isai is in the category where "he just thinks he might be facing 1-2 years of jail time" as the US Attorney stated about Bitar today.

DTM- You have one of those dry humors right?

It was a very general concern just having to do with the general way things went down.

what im wondering is... even if stars really want to buy ftp and everything, are we gonna have to wait until the trials of bitar & co to be over?! -_-

No.

These were all new criminal charges today, correct? A settlement of the civil charges against Full Tilt/Stars would be where we'd get our money back

This 100%. Bitar's lawyers knew something like this was coming when DOJ declined to confirm there would be no new charges. He didn't show up and get blindsided. This doesn't figure to affect any pending deal with regard to player repayment. Of course, until we have any details about what the terms of that agreement are, we still have no idea how close the deal is to being completed. If you haven't guessed....maybe we'll know more in a few weeks.

opc orn:

praise da lord.

Do you think that the deal will happen?

Ray Bitar Surrenders in New York City, New Charges Filed [diamondflushpoker.com]

...Devlin-Brown made the argument to the judge that there was no amount of money that could sufficiently guarantee that the defendant would not flee. He also pointed out that while the original and prior superceding indictments left all defendants with a sense of merely facing a year or two in jail if convicted, the new charges now facing Bitar could conceivably result in decades of incarceration. Therefore, Devlin-Brown argued, even though he came in voluntarily now, his feelings could change, causing him to flee...

Bitar was already facing 65 years in prison. Any possible sense of "merely facing a year or two in jail" came from the DOJ plea bargaining multiple felonies (6) with the possibility of decades (5) in jail to a misdemeanor and 3 months in jail (Campos).

The allegations in the superceding indictment indicate that FTP had not been profitable since sometime between late 2007 and early 2010. Probably not since the end of 2008. They paid out distributions of ~$10M per month. In August 2010 they were short of obligations to players by ~20 months' distributions. This does not include their additional obligations to other creditors which were probably on the order of one to three more months' distributions. While FTP may once have been profitable, they were not a profitable business at BF and had not been so for some time. markksman is not lying, and I don't think you are either.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

At least Bitar thinks it will happen. This guy knows more about the deal than all of us combined.

So what is the "USAO"? If Bitar is no longer able to negotiate with stars, then who is? What's happening on that front?

He has repeatedly stated that FTP never made any money. He has been corrected dozens of times. He is lying.

United States Attorney's Office

Let's assume Pokerstars makes the deal happen and the US finally allows online poker nationwide. If Pokerstars is allowed to play in the US again, does anyone else besides me have reservations about giving them my money?

Yes they did pay me back, but their morals were loose enough to defraud banks in the US so they could stay open to make more money. It's a slippery slope once you start breaking the law. Just ask Ray Bitar.

Not scammed or outplayed ... slowrolled.

Then i guess you should move to Cuba

Are you serious????????? lol

The new charges all have to do with the fraud against players. Scheinberg has no worries in this regard. Scott Tom ought to be worried.

If the flight risk allegation and the bail conditions came as a big enough surprise, Scheinberg and his crew may be concerned about how square the DoJ is being with them however.

While Bitar agreeing to surrender seemed to signal an imminent deal, if the DoJ pulled a fast one, it might slow a deal down while the Stars folks try for additional guarantees. However, we don't know for sure that today's drama was an example of the DoJ pullling a fast one.

Serious question: Did you really think, prior to Black Friday, that Pokerstars was 100% on the up and up operating in the USA? I know some people used the "well, poker isn't really gambling..." line to justify the sketchy behavior, but it seems off to me that you'd think they were 100% within the law before.

Choosing to play there before and not choosing to play there in the future isn't punishing them for breaking the law imo, it's just punishing them for getting caught.

This was my impression as well but Im having trouble wrapping my head around it. Like wtf could Bitar have been thinking? The DOJs goal is to get him back here to charge him, right? So if he tried negotiated out the possibility of these hidden charges, the DOJ refused to negotiate, and he still came back? It seems like if there werent sealed charges the DOJ would instantly concede that point to get him back and charge him for what they had.

Doesnt make much sense that hes been blindsided by these charges imo.

Bitar arrested. The Higgs boson found. And Anderson Cooper is gay!

Been a big day.

The problem your having is the underlying assumption that Bitar was unlikely to be extradited from Ireland.