My Take on the Jasep Situation
This site's primary goal is to out scams and scandals within the poker community. Sadly, with a lot of money changing hands between people who enjoy gambling (which is most of the userbase), there exists a strong potential for scams to occur between users of this site. This greatly saddens me, and it honestly makes me sick to think about. I honestly hate scammers, and I hate when my site has any part (even unknowingly) in one occurring. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is no way to prevent scams here unless I completely disallow people to use this site to exchange money with one another. I don't want to ever do that. I feel that's me taking control of the way other adults spend their money, and it simply is not my place to do that.
Before I go into all of the detail -- some of which has already been presented by Brandon and China -- I will make the following, very simple statement:
There is a very high chance that Jasep is flat broke.
This includes the 5k he was given for the BAP.
From all of the evidence I was given, much of it circumstantial but all pointing to the same conclusion, the 5k is likely long gone.
You will probably not see it again, unless he borrows it from someone else under false pretenses, and then postures that he had it all along.
Vegas Poker Radio
When VPR started shortly after this forum went up, some people became concerned. They felt like I should be worried that Brandon, China, and Jasep were conspiring to take this site's traffic and leave PFA in the dust. I did not share this concern. First and foremost, I believe that if you provide a good product to people and treat them with respect, they won't leave, even if they enjoy other sites at the same time. While I was already friends with Brandon and China at the time, I was very welcoming toward Jasep and supportive toward his site. I even assisted with some technical advice whenever they got stuck attempting to build it.
At the same time, I knew the site would never make any kind of appreciable money. I knew this because it was similar in many ways to PFA, and I found it extremely hard to secure sponsors, and any sponsors I could get wouldn't want to pay much money. Basically, the sponsorship model for poker forums is dead (unless you're huge like 2+2), and the affiliate model is also dead unless you are already huge and established. China and Brandon understood this. Jasep, unfortunately, did not. He really believed VPR was going to make huge money and support his family. At the time I just chalked it up to delusion and wishful thinking.
I have since talked to Brandon and China about the situation, and did some investigating of my own. The following disturbing picture emerged regarding Filthy Limper and Vegas Poker Radio:
(Keep in mind that most of these "facts" come from third parties, and while I trust all of these people and believe them to be accurate, most are not fully verified...)
- Pikachar was talked into buying 20% of Filthy Limper (the predecessor to Vegas Poker Radio) for the sum of $6,000. At one point. Jasep actually tried to talk him into buying it for as much as $25,000.
- When Filthy Limper and Venom Poker (China's site) "merged" into Vegas Poker Radio, Jasep presented to Brandon and China that they would all be 33.3% owners. It was never mentioned that Pikachar owned any part of Filthy Limper, and that he would automatically become an owner of Vegas Poker Radio.
- Jasep told Brandon that longtime friend Tim Byrd owned 50% of Filthy Limper, and therefore owned 16.67% of VPR. However, when Tim was asked about this by Brandon, Tim said that he was never informed that he owned any part of VPR.
- While China was designated to handle all of the money for the site, that did not actually occur. Instead, Jasep handled all of the money, and refused to give China and Brandon access to verify it was being spent as he described. China can go into more detail about this, but I believe he would stall them whenever they asked to see things, or made excuses why he didn't have proof/receipts/etc.
- VPR did have an income. That income was from their sole sponsor, Blind Squirrel Apparel. I do not know how much Blind Squirrel paid, but it was at least 4 figures total. The site should have been making a clear profit every month, and there should have been distributions of several hundred dollars each month to China and Brandon. I don't believe these distributions ever occurred, and if they did, they were FAR below where they should have been.
- VPR was running on bargain-basement servers. The current site (which has been forwarded to its new name PodcastVegas.com for several months) is run through a host company called Bluehost. Want proof? Here is the podcastvegas.com WHOIS entry, from just a few minutes ago:
Technical Info: (FAST-12785240)
Bluehost.com
Bluehost Inc
1958 South 950 East
Provo, Utah 84606
United States
Phone: +1.8017659400
Fax..: +1.8017651992
Email: whois@bluehost.com
Last modified: 2012-06-11 18:50:50 GMT
What is Bluehost?
It's a bargain web hosting company.
They have just one plan you can subscribe to.
It costs a whopping......
$4.95 per month!!!
http://www.bluehost.com/
So the server costs were basically nothing.
How did he manage to run a working radio server on a crappy $5/month shared hosting account?
He didn't.
The radio was being run on Pikachar's "Low Limit Poker Radio" server, and presented on VPR as if it were running from their own. This is easy to do, but impossible to hide if someone really wants to see what server is running the show. Pikachar will verify that, indeed, VPR Radio was running off his server.
So where did all of the Blind Squirrel sponsorship money go? It definitely wasn't spent on the server, which is really the site's only expense, right?
Somehow Jasep pitched it to China and Brandon that they were paying far, far more for hosting.
- Jasep hit up China for an additional $250 for "design work" by someone who was supposedly working on the site in November. Jasep never provided proof that this work was done, and China says that he demanded the money immediately, claiming that the designer needed to "start on it tomorrow" and otherwise couldn't work on it again for another few months if he wasn't paid that day.
- 4Dragons was paid for the initial design of VPR, and 2/3 of that money came from China and Brandon. However, after that, there is no evidence that any further money was paid to design/maintain the site, aside from the bargain webhosting fee of $4.95/month.
Where did all of those many months of Blind Squirrel payments go? This is important to understand if you are still giving credit to Jasep for being honest, and believe that he will ultimately come through here.
- Jasep needed a desperation $16 in order to "pay the server bills" on December 7th, according to China. If that's not indicative of someone broke and desperate, I don't know what is. Ironically, $16 would actually pay the server bills for more than 3 full months!
- Jasep recently (about 2 days ago) wiped his forum clean. This was a really, really odd move. It is understandable if he no longer wanted a forum, because it never was active, or because he just didn't care to have one anymore. However, there still is a forum -- he just wiped all of the threads and messages out, and started over. What was the reason for this? Unlike this forum, VPR's threads contained just about zero negativity or controversy. The "theme" of the forum did not change, so it's not like he wiped out a political forum's threads so he could start clean with a sports forum. He had nothing to gain by wiping the forum clean and "starting over", other than to perhaps cover up evidence of previous lies he had told that could come back to bite him in the ass.
The BAP
This BAP had many red flags. Had I known the way it would play out (even before this recent controversy and expose), I would never have allowed him to run it here. However, at the time he asked me for permission to run it, Jasep had a good reputation and aside from 4BET, everyone had reported positive experiences with him.
- He collected the money way in advance. This was very strange. He started this thread on December 8th (note it was just one day after begging China for $16). He was collecting $5k from the userbase as a stake to play live cash games.
However, he did not state that he would start playing as soon as he received the $5k. Instead, he was inexplicably waiting until January 2nd to start playing! This is very peculiar, and not common at all in the staking world. Typically, when someone asks for a stake, it is to play immediately (or very soon), not to sit on the money for nearly 4 weeks. The reason for this delay was never fully explained.
- A live cash stake is potentially problematic because it is not verifiable. There is no way to tell if the person really won or lost what they claimed, or even if they played at all. In order to make people feel more confident, he did "video blogs" each day he played to report his results. Unfortunately, these video blogs proved nothing. Most of them were recorded at his place of residence, giving details of his results, but contained no shots of the poker table, his chip stack, the casino, etc. With the exception of one video blog from the nearby Mohegan Sun (remember, he was supposed to be playing at Foxwoods), there was never evidence he even set foot inside the casino at all. While these videos did not contain any evidence that Jasep was lying about anything, they did nothing to prove that he was telling the truth. Anyone can get on camera and tell stories.
- He was supposed to pay out profits every Thursday night. This was one of the big "draws" for the stake:
Unfortunately, this did not occur. The first Thursday of the stake was January 3rd. Jasep did not pay anyone because he had just started the day before. The first payday was supposed to be January 10th. Despite supposedly being up over $700 at one point, he was up only $346 on January 10th. However, he was also going to convert his Foxwood comps of $.50 per hour into cash, and that would be another $15 or so.
January 10th came and went. He did not play or do radio that night.
Did anyone get their payout on January 10th? No.
This was because he threw in a "make up day" on Friday, where he supposedly lost $360. He did claim to have cashed $19 in casino comps, and said the running total was +$3. It actually should have been $5, but I will excuse that as a small arithmetic error.
The important point is that he directly violated his own pledge to pay out profits on Thrusday, and instead "played" on Friday and "lost" all of those profits!
I have to admit that my reaction to this was:
However, I did not have any proof, and since I wasn't an investor, it wasn't my right to complain.
Furthermore, he already had everyone's money, so even if he had scammed everyone, it was too late, and any public skepticism from me would not save anyone anything, and in fact would just serve to ruffle feathers and get a lot of people pissed. I'm sure everyone saw how angry certain people got that I even allowed this discussion of the legitimacy of this BAP to even occur.
- Jasep did not have any verifiable poker results. He claimed to have been a professional poker player since the late '90s, but he had no verifiable live results, and his online results were sparse and inconclusive. Trust me when I say that it is virtually impossible to be a longtime live pro without accumulating many friends and acquaintances that could vouch for your winning record. The only way to fly completely "under the radar" is to play online and not reveal who you are, but Jasep insisted that most of his results were live, and could not point to anything online that proved that he was a winner. He offered no testimonials from trusted live-playing peers of his that he was a longtime winner in those games.
- Jasep's schedule of play suddenly became irregular. There were many excuses as to why he couldn't play. This included odd reports of going to the doctor because he had the common cold, despite having no health insurance. As someone pointed out here, very few adults visit the doctor when they get a cold (because there is no prescription medication to cure it), and it would be especially unlikely to do so when you have no insurance and such a visit would cost you upwards of $100. It is suspected that he stopped claiming he was playing as often, in order to prevent an incident where someone would visit Foxwoods and prove he wasn't actually there. It is also possible that he really DID play some of these days, but at the time of these excuses for not playing, he had blown the entire stake on life expenses, and could not go down to the casino to play until he scratched up more money. In any case, these excuses were highly suspicious, coupled with everything else.
- When publicly questioned by several users here regarding the legitimacy of his BAP, Jasep first avoided addressing the accusations, and finally gave some answers that did not really address any of the main points. Most notably, he did NOT offer to prove that he still had the $5k, which you think would be an automatic of anyone accused of scamming that was actually innocent. For someone who made video blogging such a cornerstone of the stake, you would think that a quick shot of $5k on his bed would silence a lot of the critics, but he never did this.
- When Brandon wanted out of the BAP, Jasep asked him for a few days to pay his $1k. When Jasep did not meet his own deadline, he asked for one more day to get the money in the bank. When Jasep finally "sent" the money on Paypal, it was for an eCheck that could not be verified, and would take up to 6 days to bounce if it were no good. Jasep had bounced the previous payment of just $37 to Brandon when he had sent his last echeck. He did not explain to Brandon why there was a 5 day delay to "get the money in the bank" if he was just going to do an eCheck.
- JoeU, a longtime Jasep supporter, current BAP investor, and father of a daughter with the 22Q disorder, became skeptical. He did not express this skepticism to Jasep, but privately held it in and wanted to see things for himself. Jasep claimed on January 30th (yesterday) that he was going to Mohegan Sun to play. JoeU texted Jasep that he would be coming down to "sweat" him playing. The text from Joe was not accusatory or hostile, but rather a friendly offer to come down and watch a buddy play poker.
Minutes later, Jasep texted Joe back and claimed he was at the police station. He insisted that he and his girlfriend had been physically threatened in some way by an anonymous party, and he was not going to play that day. Shortly thereafter, he posted a message on VPR stating that he was shutting down Projekt:SEP and would be sending everyone's money out within 7 days.
It is strongly suspected that these "threats" never occurred, but that this was just a story the panicked Jasep invented when he learned that JoeU was planning upon watching him play at Mohegan Sun, and Jasep did not have the money to actually do so.
The timing of the revelation of these "threats" and JoeU's text that he was coming to watch him play (a few minutes apart) is HIGHLY suspicious!
The story about the threats themselves is also very odd:
At 12:48 I received a very serious, very scary threat..
The threat contained information about my family, my girlfriend and the car I drove yesterday that is not in my name. The threat also claimed to have knowledge of where I park my car and there was a direct expression of violence. A family member received the same threat about a minute apart. We have both been in contact with the police and I have showed this to one of my investors who I trust the most with personal info and have known the longest. I am pulling the plug on all of this bullshit and taking the advice of my family and those close to me in real life.
No poker forum is worth any of this.
Every investor has $51.75 per share coming to them, over the next couple days I will coordinate 2 friends to accompany me to cash in my chips and to get all money in the bank and then online. I will then send out all shares accordingly. Everyone will receive all of their money within 7 days from today. Once every investor has received their refund I am going to step down from this website as well and close up shop. Maybe I am overreacting, and it is most likely some lunatic with a warped sense of humor, but my family/girlfriend who have been following this story are now genuinely scared and feel like I need to act on it.
Here are the problems I find regarding these "threats":
1) If it was someone from the forum, how could they possibly know the type of car he drove, especially when it wasn't registered in his name? This would be INCREDIBLY difficult for anyone to find out.
2) Why would anyone be threatening his family?
3) The threats did not seem to be demanding anything, or have any purpose. It's not like this was a disgruntled investor who threatened that Jasep should immediately return everyone's money. It was just a threat, with no apparent purpose or reason, and the person making these threats seemed to have personal knowledge of him that no member of this forum (aside from his personal friends) could ever have.
4) He discussed cashing in his chips over the next few days. As has already been discussed, why would a low-mid-limit player take his chips home instead of cashing them out? He is not playing nearly high enough to have to worry about IRS tracking or CTR forms.
But the statement also contained the promise to pay everyone their investment back (along with a very small profit) within 7 days.
Why would he make such a promise if he's broke?
Only Jasep can answer that question, but my guess is that he realizes that the walls are closing in on his situation, and that people are too skeptical for him to continue the way it was before. Basically, people were going to demand a lot more proof and perhaps a lot more JoeU types were going to visit and sweat him.
But what about the 5k?
Note that he was giving himself 7 days to pay everyone. That seems to be a stalling tactic. Jasep knows a lot of people -- friends, family members, other poker players, etc. If he could create a phony "emergency" to get one of these people to float him 5k (someone without knowledge of what's happening on PFA), he could refund everyone's money and come out smelling like roses. This would enable him to both save his reputation and run another BAP in the future after everything calms down.
The above is just a theory and NOT an accusation. However, I have to imagine there's a good chance the truth is somewhere fairly close to that.
There is no reason it should take 7 days to pay everyone. In fact, if he were really serious about paying people, he could immediately give the money (or deposit it in the bank account) of a trusted third party, who would then distribute it.
My guess is that the only way he sends everyone their money back within 7 days is if he can borrow 5k from someone else. If not, I predict we will either get more excuses or he will just disappear. The disconnection of his phone is already a sign that he's planning to vanish.
While there is a small chance I could be wrong, I think it's highly likely that most or all of this $5k is gone.
The 22Q Foundation
The 22Q Podcast raised $6500 for the charity. $3500 went directly to them, without Jasep as the middleman. About $3000 was supposed to be sent by Jasep to 22Q. Given all of the other disturbing facts that have come out, obviously many of us are now concerned as to whether or not he sent that $3000. If nothing else, Jasep, PLEASE provide everyone with definitive proof that you sent the $3000 to the charity.
Personal Loans and Suspicious Friends
The following people have been in communication with Brandon regarding Jasep. Note that all of them are/were very close with Jasep, and there is just about no chance that these people would all get together to ruin his good name. According to Brandon, all of these people gave him permission to use their names.
JoeU: Father of a child with the 22Q disorder, and the driving force behind the 22Q podcast idea. He is also an investor with this BAP. JoeU is very skeptical of the BAP and thinks there's a very high chance he got cheated. He texted Johnny on January 30th and said that he wanted to watch him play that day (without letting on to his suspicions), and that's when Jasep reported the "threats" occurring that had ended his BAP.
Tim Byrd: Tim Byrd, who has known Jasep nearly his entire life, told Brandon he had been loaning large sums of money to Jasep over time. He is no longer loaning Jasep any money, realizing that it is enabling the problem. He has told Brandon that Jasep has been broke and borrowing money for a long time.
Kevin Wright: Another longtime friend of Jasep's, Kevin Wright, who was also a Filthy Limper Radio co-host, has expressed to Brandon that he doesn't think Jasep has been honest regarding this BAP.
pikachar: An original investor of Filthy Limper for 20% (which cost him $6k), pikachar now agrees that this BAP is likely bogus or highly misrepresented. He is also concerned that he did not get the proper distribution of profits from VPR and Filthy Limper, given the bargain-basement hosting Jasep was using, despite having the lucrative Blind Squirrel sponsorship.
Identity Theft Conviction
As first reported by crazy old man SixToedPete, Jasep has admitted he was convicted of identity theft involving the mother of his child. He was arrested for securing a $1000 loan in his then-girlfriend's name, without her knowledge. He admits that there is a conviction on his record for this. However, he claims that he simply accepted the conviction in order to let his family move past this, and to not put everyone through a stressful trial. This is highly unlikely. Accepting an identity theft conviction when you're innocent is a
HUGE life mistake, as it leaves a black mark on your record forever, and would be a huge hindrance for both future employment and getting anyone to trust you. If this was really just a misunderstanding or a vindictive ex-girlfriend, he would have a good chance of beating this in court, and would never have pled guilty. Given everything else that has come out, I think everyone realizes that this conviction is exactly what it appears to be.
Conclusion
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Jasep was convicted of identity theft against the mother of his own child.
Jasep collected money from a lucrative sponsorship for many months, yet his business partners barely saw any of that money, despite the fact that the server he was using cost less than $5 per month.
Jasep did not meet his own promised obligation to distribute winnings from his first week of BAP.
Jasep has no provable poker results, whether online or live.
Jasep revealed the "threats" he received that prevent him from continuing this BAP just minutes after an investor wanted to come down and watch him play.
Jasep cleared his own forum for no apparent reason.
Jasep has not yet provided any proof that he submitted the $3000 that people gave him for the 22Q foundation.
Jasep apparently lied to user "Detroit" regarding an iPad "in the mail", which clearly was never sent.
Jasep has borrowed large sums of money from friends over the years, especially Tim Byrd.
Jasep started this BAP just one day after demanding an immediate $16 from China in order to pay the VPR server bill.
This whole thing looks like very bad news.
I am afraid that even more will come out as the week wears on.
As a former user (and regular lurker) used to say:
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS
Originally Posted by The_PHA
You know, I don't like people like you, having random ass sex. Then accusing John Travolta of being a homo.
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