Alleged poker cheat Mike Postle’s $330 million defamation lawsuit against several prominent members of the poker community hit a huge roadblock as he no longer has legal representation for the case and is now facing two anti-SLAPP lawsuits which would nix Postle’s countersuit.
Jan 20, 2021 The latest development in the ongoing saga of Mike Postle isn’t a good one for the poker player who faced cheating allegations after suspicious action on the Stones Gambling Hall live stream. Poker commentator Joey Ingram made two YouTube videos, totaling 10 hours, examining Postle's play. He estimates Postle won $250,000 over more than 250 hours of play in relatively low-stakes games. Sep 16, 2020 Last month, poker player Mike Postle sensationally beat a $30 million civil lawsuit after nearly 90 fellow players accused him of cheating. Now, the Sacramento card player says he plans to tell.
Last month, Mac VerStandig, the attorney who represented the 88 plaintiffs in the original lawsuit surrounding the cheating allegations, brought to light the fact that Postle’s lawyer, Steven T. Lowe of the Beverly Hills law firm Lowe & Associates, filed paperwork in December to drop Postle as a client.
Judge Richard K Sueyoshi was scheduled to make a ruling on the motion Jan. 14. The following day, poker pro Todd Witteles, who is a defendant in Postle’s defamation lawsuit, tweeted that Sueyoshi granted Lowe’s motion to be relieved as counsel.
Based on the phrasing used by Lowe in the motion, Witteles’ attorney, Eric Bensomochan said that the likely reason for the move was a lack of payment. He was on Witteles’ podcast shortly after VerStandig tweeted the motion and said that with a lawsuit of this size, even a sizable retainer of $15,000-$20,000 could be used up within a couple of weeks.
This leaves Postle without representation for his nine-figure suit against many who spoke out on the topic of whether Postle cheated. He was accused of cheating in a low-stakes live-streamed poker game at Stones Gambling Hall in the Sacramento area. He reportedly won upwards of $250,000 playing almost exclusively in $1-$3 and $2-$5 no-limit hold’em cash games over roughly an 18-month time span between 2018 and 2019.
VerStandig filed a $30 million suit against Postle, the ownership group of Stones Gambling Hall and Stones’ Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis, who was also in charge of the livestream and who many believed to be Postle’s accomplice in the scheme. The charges against Postle were eventually dismissed and most plaintiffs accepted a settlement for the remaining charges against Kuraitis and Stones.
After Postle was free of the charges, he launched a countersuit against anyone who commented on the allegations. He filed a defamation and libel lawsuit against Witteles, whistleblower and former Stones employee Veronica Brill, six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu, high-stakes gambler Haralabos Voulgaris, poker personality Joey Ingram, as well as ESPN, Poker News media, Upswing Poker, Run It Once, Crush Live Poker, Solve For Why and Poker Coaching, which are run by poker pros Doug Polk, Phil Galfond, Bart Hanson, Matt Berkey and Jonathan Little, respectively.
Brill And Witteles File Anti-SLAPP Suits
In the face of the libel suit, Witteles and Brill both filed anti-SLAPP motions against Postle, which will be difficult to fight without a legal team behind him.
SLAPP is an acronym for strategic lawsuits against public participation. According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, SLAPPs have become a tool used by some to intimidate and silence criticism through an expensive and baseless legal process.
Anti-SLAPP laws are intended to protect people, who are simply exercising their right to free speech, from these proceedings. In most situations, the defendant of a case will move to dismiss it unless the plaintiff can prove that they will prevail in the suit. Postle would have to provide evidence to show that he could receive a verdict in his favor or the case would be dismissed and the plaintiff would be forced to pay attorney fees for the defendants.
Both Brill and Witteles are using Postle’s career as a professional poker player and his appearances on Stones’ livestream to argue that he became a public figure, which heightens the standards for Postle to prove libel as he would need to prove that the defendants acted in malice.
“Stones Hall’s ‘broadcast team did its best to turn him into a poker celebrity. They created a series of graphics designed to hype his talents,’ including showing ‘Postle’s face superimposed over that of Jesus,’” wrote Brill’s legal team in the filing.
Brill is being represented by Las Vegas-based lawyers Marc J. Randazza and Alex J. Shepard, while Wittlees is represented by Beverly Hills-based Bensomochan. Witteles’ anti-SLAPP motion will be heard by Judge David Brown in a Sacramento Superior Court on Feb. 10. Brill’s motion will be heard by Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi the following day.
Dollar amounts were “nominal”
Stones Gambling Hall has agreed to a settlement with 61 of the 88 plaintiffs in the lawsuit revolving around charges of alleged cheating by poker player Mike Postle. In June, a judge dismissed charges against Postle, Stones, and Stones Live livestream production manager Justin Kuraitis, though some complaints could have been amended and brought back to court. The settlement was originally announced in August, but it was not until this week that terms were finalized.
It’s an amicable settlement that we’re happy to enter into.”
Maurice “Mac” VerStandig, attorney for the 88 plaintiffs, told The Sacramento Bee Monday that “It’s an amicable settlement that we’re happy to enter into.”
Financial terms have not been made public, but a Stones source told the Bee that the payouts were “nominal” and were really just a way to “show good will.” Richard Pachter, Kuraitis’s attorney, called the settlement “a complete vindication.”
Interestingly, Mac VerStandig issued a statement as part of the settlement, saying that neither Stones nor Kuraitis were involved in any alleged cheating. “My co-counsel and I have found no forensic evidence that there was cheating at Stones or that Stones, Mr Kuraitis, the Stones Live team, or any dealers were involved in any cheating scheme,” VerStandig said.
“…we are satisfied that Stones and Mr Kuraitis were not involved in any cheating that may have occurred,” he added, noticeably leaving out Mike Postle’s name.
Justin Kuraitis relieved, but furious
Kuraitis spoke out for the first time on Monday, expressing his happiness with the settlement. He also lashed out at the poker community and poker media outlets who “falsely accused me of being a knowing participant in what was allegedly the ‘biggest poker cheating scandal in history.’”
He added that, although the allegations against him were untrue, he willingly cooperated with the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control. Kuraitis said that not only was he innocent, but that Mike Postle did not cheat either.
Among others, Kuraitis specifically pointed out popular poker vlogger Joey Ingram, claiming he “was peddling false statistics, cherry-picking hands to fit his theories and ignoring data that did not fit his version of the story.”
Kuraitis explained that the “propaganda machine” was so effective that he actually started wondering if he really did miss signs of cheating.
Those close to me know that I would never stand for or be involved in anything close to what I was accused of.”
“In the last year I have seen a community that I considered family turn against me,” wrote Kuraitis in his three and a half page statement. “Those close to me know that I would never stand for or be involved in anything close to what I was accused of. Many of the people that joined the lawsuit and spoke out against me were people that I once called friends. Some of them, I even considered family.”
Postle will tell his story
Postle Poker
The Postle case dates back a year, when Veronica Brill tweeted that she suspected someone of cheating in Stones Live games, low-stakes cash games streamed live from Stones Gambling Hall. The poker community proceeded to comb through Postle’s stats and videos from his streamed sessions, concluding that he profited about $130,000 in 34 streamed cash game sessions of $1/$3 and $5/$5 No-Limit Hold’em.
Postle Poker Cheat
Postle texted the Bee on Monday, saying: “As much as I’d like to say, all I can really say right now is that I have my side of this entire fiasco to tell. It won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world.”
He added that he is telling “an entire incredible 17-year story”, which includes this saga, to a production team who is putting together a documentary film.