EPL says "We can ban you for things much more minor than felonies".

They say this, and then don't ban everyone that has a felony.

You're not ok with this. I am and think it's completely standard of literally every major company.

Every ToS, even every educational honor code operates this way. Case by case basis is nothing unusual.

As you've more or less stated, this is what we disagree on.




I had to walk very carefully for many years. Even these days, I read the Code of Conduct, got worried, and talked to Annie one on one about it.

The fact that a convicted pedophile wouldn't walk carefully to the extent that I do is just absurd and unfathomable to me.

I've been excluded quite a bit, and don't hold it against the companies that excluded me one bit.

PokerStars gave me a harsh punishment, and IMO, they handled the situation perfectly.

Maybe he just wanted to go on with his life. It's not as if the pedophile is going to live next door where you have children. He plays a poker tournament ffs.

Man, this is the twilight zone, I'm defending a pedophile and still feel it's the right thing to do in this case.

What about the person who bubbled that satellite?

i can't understand how this can be legal.

yea it's a private league, they have a code of conduct, etc, but doesn't everything ultimately fall on the palms? doesn't the nevada gaming commission supercede a cheesy code of conduct agreement?

i am sure the palms would never confiscate legitimate winnings on moral grounds. i just can't believe that the EPL has the authority to do that. seems incredibly audacious and the palms is risking a fine from the NGC

Yeah I know, but I also am glad you get all the chances you have now. You did your time and I honestly believe you're a good person and have a good integrity. No reason to get back to your past every time.

That's why I think it IS relevant to this case.

here is a consolidation of links in this thread..


http://www.scribd.com/doc/64407440/Michael-J-DiVita

http://www.scribd.com/doc/64420094/M...ult-on-Officer
http://www.banningpolice.org/PressRel/pr_122308.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/644...tzz13nu1ae5jdv



That said the guy deserves the 20k.......buuut either way I don't think he should be allowed to play any tourneys, I'm just surprised he still has his freedom ...whilst people like this guy had to suffer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Dixon

IMO our country's justice system is worse than the Epic league"justice system".

I didn't say any of these things. As I've said before, in the personal case that I found myself in, I talked to Annie to find out if I was ok. Stealing ala Chino is also not OK. He got a punishment that IMO was excessively lenient because he got lucky to finish 1st. I don't appreciate you trying to twist my words like this.

See my first post ITT. His most recent offense was two months ago at the poker table against a league member's wife.

When a player like Michael Vick gets penalized, it makes headlines, but not due to any hypocrisy of the NFL.

Poker players look at cheaters the same way they look at a convicted pedophile, they hate them both equally. In most cases poker players may hate cheaters more unless they were directly effected by a pedo. As someone who got caught you should know this. The fact that 95% of players on 2+2 are defending this creep will tell you that.

Its the EPL that cheated this guy out of money and players hate that fact.

In this equation pedo > cheater

LOL, so she actually came out and said that the rules are different if you're one of the gang. Well that's something I suppose. Why don't they go the whole way and call it the NOHOMERS league*.

Also they absolutely cannot have "any rules they like". Do I really have to give you the obvious example?

* They're allowed to have one, LDO.

Meh, I don't think a case by case allowance for a lot of other crimes/issues then an exclusion where it wasn't 100% clear that he should have been excluded then forcing him to forfeit the value of his seat without compensation is really all that standard. There is usually a fairly clearly delineated hard line (in business and academia), with "gray area" cases examined on a case by case basis and an appeals process. Here there's just a pretty vague line ("high moral and ethical standards only") and a "we reserve the right to do whatever we damn well please" clause, and apparently that "whatever we damn well please" clause can kick in and void an already won prize.

And for a league supposedly concerned about their image, surely you can see how this looks hypocritical/suspect, even if you don't personally believe that they made an error in this case, correct? If they wanted to uphold the highest moral/ethical standards possible, they would err on the side of exclusion, not inclusion, IMO, which would mean that a lot of members should have previously been excluded so as to uphold an image of impeccable moral standard.

To an outsider, this is what it looks like to me - if you're a pro and we like you, all of your past misdeeds, however serious, are fine, just keep your nose clean from now on. If we don't like or don't know you, we can do whatever the hell we want no matter how far back your felony conviction goes, no matter that we didn't spell that out clearly, and no matter that you won a seat, and if you make a fuss we'll threaten to out you publicly, so take your buyin back, SFTU, and go away.

Hardly the image I think they want to present. I doubt many outsiders think they have any moral standards to speak of at this point. Like I said before, either create a concrete list of past/future actions that exclude you (then look at borderline cases as needed), or just admit that the poker world is too full of degens to realistically get away with having a top tier league that emphasizes ethics.

Do you honestly think this is the end of it? They've had exactly two stops so far and already two ethical dilemmas on their hands. Not the record you'd think they would have for a league that is so proud of the moral standards of their players and their league.

Exactly this.

Ya. I can see the argument that they stole money if you ignore the fact that he withdrew voluntarily.

In reality though, what they did was legal, and involved them giving out more money than they had to, so I don't fault them.

Don't forget if they gave the guy his 20k in cash, and the 10th place finisher nothing, now the 10th place finisher can sue for 9 seats not being rewarded.

Meh. Past felonies can be tolerated, but are not OK. In the event of rape with RECENT INFRACTIONS AT THE POKER TABLE, we're not talking about some theft from decades ago.

It's clearly not the end of it. They wouldn't have an ethics council if they thought it was the end. Who says they are proud of the moral standards of their players? It's very different saying, "We're holding our players to high standards", than saying, "We're proud of how ethical our members have always acted."

you realize a lot of states restore ur right to vote after you have served your time? You realize you can get a passport with no problems? So ur 1 for 3, good post though.

Some states do, some don't.

As someone that has recently looked into foreign residency in quite a few countries, I can personally tell you that having a felony in the US makes it impossible to get a passport / residency in almost every other country.

To clarify: I'm not talking about a US citizen getting a US passport. I'm talking about a US citizen trying to get a Maltese passport.

do u have a felony on ur record? because you don't know what ur talking about there.

Here is a summary of the U.S. law:

Mandatory Denial. Passports are issued to
applicants as a matter of course in all but a few
rare situations. Except for direct return to the
U.S., the law provides that a passport shall not be
issued to an applicant subject to a federal arrest
warrant or subpoena for any matter involving a
felony. Furthermore, a passport shall not be issued
where the applicant is subject to a court order or
condition of parole or probation which forbids
departure from the U.S. Passports will also be
refused if the applicant has not repaid loans
received from the United States for certain expenses
incurred while the applicant was a prisoner abroad.
Nor will a passport be issued if the applicant is
under imprisonment or supervised release for any
conviction, at either the state or federal level,
for a felony involving a controlled substance.

Discretionary Denial. In any case, including for
direct return to the United States, a passport may
be refused where the applicant has not repaid a loan
received from the United States to effectuate his
return from a foreign country, where the applicant
has been declared incompetent, or where a minor
applicant does not have the necessary consent of
legal guardians. Moreover, a passport may be
refused if the Secretary of State determines that
the applicant's activities abroad are causing or are
likely to cause serious damage to the national
security or foreign policy of the United States.
Finally, a passport may be refused when the
applicant is subject to imprisonment or supervised
release for a misdemeanor drug conviction, other
than a first offense for possession, if the
individual used a U.S. passport or otherwise crossed
an international border in committing the offense.

even a quick google search will show you that you are wrong, and I could show you a picture of mine.

as for obtaining residency, yes that is something different. Most places do background checks etc. Canada is the only place that will 100% not let someone with a record in, I wouldn't try to go to the UK either, but other than that nobody looking at ur passport has ur criminal history at their fingertips except for us customs.. you think someone going to thailand, some thai customs dude is going to be able to look up everything about you from us records?

What felony does zeejustin have?

I would be curious to know others player's felonies who are members of the epic pok league.

Also Sgt Rj is crushing this thread.

I've never been arrested or convicted of anything, let alone a felony.

But if you are applying for residency anywhere, they ask you if you have any felonies, and require a background check.

For Malta I had to get fingerprinted, submit those prints to the FBI, just to them to come back and say I have no criminal record. Malta requires this just to apply for residency.

Thai customs won't have your US records, but if you are applying for a Thai passport / Thai residency, I can only assume they will require records like all of the other countries I looked into when deciding where to move.

This x10. No-one cares if they don't let him play, barring known sex offenders is probably +EV if they want to make this a big time televised event and whether or not that's consistent with the treatment of other criminals/cheats/degens in the event, that's their decision.

But having now decided you don't want him there, you have to pay him the 20K value that he won.

That's the price you pay for making retroactive decisions. Either they cough up the extra 20K or they tell Mr 10th place, well there is no 9th place because he can't play. And IMO 10th place has a much weaker case to sue than Devita if they went that road.

They promised 9 entries into the EPL. 10th place guy can sue if you do this.

Come on. He didn't withdraw voluntarily. Being told "withdraw or we'll ban you anyway and make your past public" is a pretty shifty definition of "voluntary".

I guess what they did was legal in the sense that I can't think of a single law they broke. I question the ethics of it, though.

His "recent interactions at the poker table", which I still haven't heard a full story of (I'm not saying it's not out there, I'm just saying I haven't read it yet) have absolutely jack **** all to do with this and you know it. There's a whole thread on sexism in poker in NVG, as well as a thread in TWSS on dealing with homophobic/sexist comments. I don't like it, but being sexually harassed at the poker table is hardly a news worthy event - it's relatively rare, thank God, but not that rare. Again, if they are using that as a basis for their decision, or his recent CHARGE that was dropped, then they should apply the same standard to all their players, which would exclude Men Nguyen at the very least given his public attack on Vanessa Selbst.

I find it odd that you can't see why others find this entire situation disgustingly hypocritical. How hard would it be for them to sit down as an ethics committee, draw up a list of offenses which results in automatic exclusion from their events, and make it public?

It wouldn't be that hard. But they don't want to do that, because they know that they would either a) have to get rid of several prominent members of their league or b) make such an anemic list that they would have no basis for touting the ethical standards of their league.

This just about sums it up. Well said

That's the price you pay for making retroactive decisions. Either they cough up the extra 20K or they tell Mr 10th place, well there is no 9th place because he can't play. And IMO 10th place has a much weaker case to sue than Devita if they went that road.