Mike Postle's Lawyer: "I Know Such Streaks Are Possible"

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Oct 13, 2019 4 min read

The Mike Postle cheating allegations saga has been the talk of the poker world ever since lead whistleblower Veronica Brill came forth with accusations at the end of September.

The story doesn't seem to be dying any time soon, especially after a new twist last week when a $10 million lawsuit was filed on behalf of twenty-five plaintiffs. Those plaintiffs include Brill, poker content creators Jeff "Boski" Sluzinski, and Jaman Burton. It was filed with the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California against the accused cheater Mike Postle, Stones Gambling Hall where the alleged cheating took place, Stones Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis, and an unnamed "chief confederate" John Doe 1.

Postle's lawyer: "When I play poker I lose almost every hand, so I know such streaks are possible."

The suit asks for any damages to be "divided pari passu between and amongst the Stones Fraud Victims in proration to the number of minutes they spent playing on the Stones Live Poker broadcast from January 1, 2019 through the present."

The filing begins with the claim that: "This case concerns Mr. Postle's systematic use of one or more electronic devices, for the purposes of cheating, while playing in broadcast games of poker, to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow players."

Among the other claims in the filing include: "Mr. Postle’s winnings on the Stones Live Poker broadcast, and his correlative play of poker, have been so exceptionally outstanding as to lead the commentator to note his seemingly mystical abilities on numerous occasions, and to lead Stones (Live) Poker to produce various graphics portraying Mr. Postle as a deity-like individual imbued with omniscient powers (with one such graphic conflating an image of Mr. Postle and an image of Jesus Christ)."

Postle's Attorney Responds

The story has gone viral outside the poker world as well as it has caught the attention of mainstream media outlets including ESPN and The Sacramento Bee. The latter published a story on Friday outlining the stances by lawyers from some of the defendants involved in the lawsuit.

Postle hasn't been available for comments outside of what is dubbed by many in the poker community to be a softball interview by Mike Matusow, and some early tweets on the subject. The Sacramento Bee instead received a comment from Postle's attorney William Portanova who implied Postle's winning streak was within the realm of possibility.

“I guess he wins a lot of hands of poker. I don’t gamble, because that’s how many hands I lose. But we don’t know what the facts are. I can just say this: When I play poker I lose almost every hand, so I know such streaks are possible.”

This goes in the face of claims made by respected poker players and personalities including Joey Ingram, Doug Polk, Jeff Boski, and Jonathan Little.

Stones Hires Lipman to Investigate

Stones Gambling Hall initially denied that there was any wrongdoing when the story first went viral stating that an investigation took place earlier in the year. They went as far as to state that: "The recent allegations are completely fabricated."

Stones more recently backtracked and announced that it would suspend its live poker stream and that former federal prosecutor Michael Lipman would investigate the allegations after the digging of several poker players and personality, most notably Ingram.

Stones' investigator: "Stones is very serious about finding out what, if anything, has happened with regard to this situation."

“Stones is very serious about finding out what, if anything, has happened with regard to this situation,” Lipman said Friday to The Sacramento Bee. “We are doing what in my experience is a serious investigation in order to determine what happened.

Lipman acknowledged that analysis by the poker community is being taken into consideration while somewhat discounting much of it as "circumstantial evidence." Lipman further shared that the plan is to investigate the allegations by forensically examine the hardware used for the stream.

Stones investigator: "Most of what they’ve said is circumstantial evidence as to what may have happened. However, we believe that the definitive evidence will be found by forensically examining the computer systems used to broadcast the stream."

“We are aware of the comments and analysis that’s been done by the poker community and have taken all of that into consideration as part of our inquiry," Lipman said. "Most of what they’ve said is circumstantial evidence as to what may have happened. However, we believe that the definitive evidence will be found by forensically examining the computer systems used to broadcast the stream.”

To that end, Lipman shared that the computer forensics company Stroz Friedberg has been hired by Stones to investigate the stream's computer systems.

“Stroz has flown employees to Sacramento from the East Coast, we have imaged what we believe to be the relevant computers and components and Stroz had begun their analysis," said Lipman. “I believe that it will be the computer forensics that will give us the definitive evidence needed to reach the ultimate conclusion. “We have been and will continue to totally cooperate with the Bureau of Gambling Control from day one.”

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