Rob Mercer accused of terminal cancer Gofundme scam which netted up to $40k

https://twitter.com/OnlyFriends_Pod/...593904164?s=20

If anyone knows what space this is, TimeStamp of some sort or maybe a recording I would love to hear this interaction. This is the problem with the spaces. They’re just people talking for hours & hours about bullshit and then something notable will happen & disappear into the ether.

Now, I did hear Vertucci deny he even knew about the GoFundme. He’s a talker, not a worker. We all know the type. Thinks he can just do everything on the fly with his selling skills. But let’s be real, if you are a person of means and encourage others to donate money to a cause and you don’t donate yourself. JFC. Add on that it ends up most likely being a total scam. Yikes.

I can already tell you Nick’s probable rebuttal. He will say he was going to personally give Rob his donation in Vegas but the red flags starting flying immediately when he arrived. But I would really love to hear this interaction. It is possible Rob shamed Nick into ponying up coin right after this space. Either way it just seems like classic Vertucci.

But please, if anyone has any information leading to the retrieval of this supposed interaction…let us know.

BTW In general I agree with Druff about Vertucci just being sloppy & wanting to come off charitable here. However, if he did in fact not donate himself that speaks highly to his character. So it’s pretty much a different issue in some sense.

On a positive note I’m very glad that out of all this mess we have heard more from Cody. I’m glad Druff will be interviewing him. I’m happy that he has gotten a chance to live out some of his dreams. On a different note I hope Rob is prosecuted for this if the evidence so shows this was what it looks like. The cherry on top for me was him waiting in the payout line to scam Cody. Maybe scamming a real terminally ill person may give authorities more reason to give a shit.

is it time for Mercer to go on my website of scammers? Wowow traffic has been picking up there, hope that keeps up
Ill let PFA members decide Mercers fate

I think it's been clear the whole way that Nick didn't personally donate anything. He just arranged the fundraising, and then pledged to donate the remainder if it fell short. It didn't fall short, so Nick didn't donate.

But whatever. That's fine. Nick has a big platform and shouldn't be shamed for fundraising without donating himself. The donation is the platform.

The only issue with him here is the fact that he didn't vet Mercer, but I'm sure that was carelessness and nothing cold/malicious. Even if you think badly of Nick, it's not even in his self-interest to support something like this and have it turn out to be a scam.

But yes, I had heard something (in the past few days) about Rob being an ingrate and complaining about things, rather than being grateful for the chance he was given. Had I known this at the time, I would have been highly suspicious this was a scam. Actual terminal cancer patients given money to live out their dream never act like ingrates. You can't even say that's just Rob's personality, because he turned down the initial 200-ish buyin stakes offered by Snoopdoug, claiming he did not want to take from anyone. So to not only suddenly take 5 figures, but also bitch about things connected to it, you know something's not right.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

I think it's been clear the whole way that Nick didn't personally donate anything. He just arranged the fundraising, and then pledged to donate the remainder if it fell short. It didn't fall short, so Nick didn't donate.

But whatever. That's fine. Nick has a big platform and shouldn't be shamed for fundraising without donating himself. The donation is the platform.

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The pledge was meaningless as he pretty well knew once he amplified this we were talking about chump change for the main event buy-in goal to be reached. Then we 3 or 4X it in cash donations from his buddies, which clearly just went to degeneracy. We may differ on Vertucci here Druff. But other than a few critical posts on forums such as this, Nick skates regardless.

These won’t even lay a glove on him. Like all the other complaints for his past business practices. He just keeps skating. If we look at this incident in a vacuum, I’m pretty much with you. But there’s a pattern of some poor business practices and a pattern of him completely skating.

There is no rule that you have to actually donate to a cause you are pushing others to do so. But I cam tell you my friends would be none to happy if I did that. For sure that there are people pretty irked but not only being scammed, but that the ask came from someone who didn’t lose a penny. But at this point I’m barking into the wind. It is what it is. People can all draw their own conclusion.

https://twitter.com/PuntingStacks/st...02658890580298

I just want to let everyone at PFA know that I, sadly, have cancer.

By cancer, I mean I'm missing a tooth.

I had to have a tooth extracted because I intervened in a bar fight a few years back (I think '18 but might have been early '19) that really wasn't any of my business. The only reason that I intervened is because it was three out-of-towners and two local black dudes, one of whom I recognized from my bar hops and was always nice enough. It looked like the third out-of-towner was going to stay out of it, so I would have left it alone.

Anyway, the third guy got physically involved (and it wasn't to break the fight up) because his friends were losing. Obviously, I couldn't let a 3-2 stand without doing something, so I jumped in and was just going to attempt to restrain that guy. Somehow, one of the other out-of-towners got free and totally blindsided me. He got me pretty good and, evidently, knocked my tooth partially into my sinuses wherein it shattered.

That guy got to go night-night for his trouble.

Anyway, the bartender finally yells that he's calling the police so the two black dudes and myself all went our separate ways. As far as the out-of-town guys, only one of them was walking anytime soon, so I don't know or care what happened to them.

I ended up having what was left of that tooth extracted a couple years back. I wasn't aware that the tooth had partially shattered in my sinuses. The dentist called it the most difficult extraction she had ever performed for that reason. Honestly, I probably would have just continued to live with it, but it got to the point that my mouth would just randomly bleed and then my good teeth would all be smeared with blood.

This story is completely true, except the cancer part, so please give me one million dollars. Preferably in non-consecutive, unmarked, cash.

Of course, I don't actually want any money. I can also prove that I had a tooth extracted and MAYBE that it was shattered in my sinuses if they take notes to that effect. I'm not a dentist, so I don't know if they do or not. I can't really prove I was in a bar fight other than I talked to a poster on WoV about it (on the phone) the following day and you could either take his word or the word of my fiancee.

That's the most recent fight I got in, I believe. I thought I was going to get into one yesterday, but the pussy backed down. What a shame.

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Originally Posted by JeffDime

The pledge was meaningless as he pretty well knew once he amplified this we were talking about chump change for the main event buy-in goal to be reached. Then we 3 or 4X it in cash donations from his buddies, which clearly just went to degeneracy. We may differ on Vertucci here Druff. But other than a few critical posts on forums such as this, Nick skates regardless.

These won’t even lay a glove on him. Like all the other complaints for his past business practices. He just keeps skating. If we look at this incident in a vacuum, I’m pretty much with you. But there’s a pattern of some poor business practices and a pattern of him completely skating.

There is no rule that you have to actually donate to a cause you are pushing others to do so. But I cam tell you my friends would be none to happy if I did that. For sure that there are people pretty irked but not only being scammed, but that the ask came from someone who didn’t lose a penny. But at this point I’m barking into the wind. It is what it is. People can all draw their own conclusion.

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I agree with your sentiment towards Nick.
His involvement in the mercer fund raising kept me completely disinterested - i am pretty aware of his long history of scamming.

But there are many other things to go after him for and if you are willing to spend any time digging into the 'content' that he creates you'll have a long list of things he promotes which are obvious grifts / scams.
He's on a mission to be a poor mans alex jones, dumber and with a lot of patriotic tattoos which he got during his epic, ongoing mid life crisis.

unfortunately i think that josh macciello had a plan to make his CANCER CURING CBD PRODUCT be the thing that 'saved robs life'. he is the type to think people will blindly believe this story. when he shows up in spaces, you can hear his ego growing everything someone mentions his name as someone who tried to 'help mercer'.

macciello has that same trait where he thinks his 'sales game' will allow him to solve any problem. but in reality, everything he touches ends in court.
he talks about 'his cbd guy' in this weird way that makes it clear he has something shady going on and wants to distance himself for the inevitable downfall and lawsuits that come with all of his 'business ventures'

The hcl crew is the most self absorbed, out of touch, and all around stupid group of people i've seen enter the poker world in quite some time.

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

is it time for Mercer to go on my website of scammers? Wowow traffic has been picking up there, hope that keeps up
Ill let PFA members decide Mercers fate

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This goes way beyond you Tankazoo.. This Mercer pile of shit deserves to get the FBI knocking on his door and federal charges for wire fraud among others. People have been criminally charged for this sort of scam.

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Originally Posted by Ryback_feed_me_more

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

is it time for Mercer to go on my website of scammers? Wowow traffic has been picking up there, hope that keeps up
Ill let PFA members decide Mercers fate

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This goes way beyond you Tankazoo.. This Mercer pile of shit deserves to get the FBI knocking on his door and federal charges for wire fraud among others. People have been criminally charged for this sort of scam.

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Cool, I look forward to the results

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

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Originally Posted by Ryback_feed_me_more

This goes way beyond you Tankazoo.. This Mercer pile of shit deserves to get the FBI knocking on his door and federal charges for wire fraud among others. People have been criminally charged for this sort of scam.

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Cool, I look forward to the results

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@Ryback…I hope you are right about where this ultimately goes. However, I wouldn’t discourage someone like Tanka from including him on his website. People are already forgetting about this and anything to keep some kind of spotlight on Mercer & what he did is a big plus imho. Mercer is banking on the fact that this blows over relatively quickly and he can breathe a sign of relief and keep doing meth until he needs dentures.

@Tanka…I think it’s good for both society & for your business overall what you are doing. I like the fact that you seem to want to include scammers that really are not likely to be collectible for you, as well as those you can. So keep it up!

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Originally Posted by JeffDime

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

Cool, I look forward to the results

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@Ryback…I hope you are right about where this ultimately goes. However, I wouldn’t discourage someone like Tanka from including him on his website. People are already forgetting about this and anything to keep some kind of spotlight on Mercer & what he did is a big plus imho. Mercer is banking on the fact that this blows over relatively quickly and he can breathe a sign of relief and keep doing meth until he needs dentures.

@Tanka…I think it’s good for both society & for your business overall what you are doing. I like the fact that you seem to want to include scammers that really are not likely to be collectible for you, as well as those you can. So keep it up!

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thanks so much
I actually took off the option on the site to contact me for collecting purposes
Im more concerned with people knowing who the scammers are than I am about drumming up business, plus Im buried in work right now, I wouldnt take any more clients anyways

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

https://twitter.com/PuntingStacks/st...02658890580298

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I remember this tweet.

At the time, I wasn't sure whether to take his tone as jealousy or sarcasm. At the time, I thought his point was that there are many very sick people in poker, many worse off than Jami, and yet somehow she feels entitled to the community's money while everyone else gets nothing.

I thought his point was reasonable. I could picture a dying young man watching Jami (in much better condition than him) receiving $17k for her sob story, simply because she was an attractive female.

However, at the same time, I did see some possible entitlement there. Was he making the point that we should also give money to him, or was that end line sarcastic?

I warmed up to him when Snoopdoug and a few others offered to stake him in 3-figure NoCal events, and he turned them all down. At that point, I assumed his objection was just to Jami receiving money, and not that he felt he deserved it as well.


In hindsight, of course, this was at best an initial troll job which turned into a likely con, and at worst a premeditated WSOP scam.

Oh, and apparently that wasn't Mercer's first tweet.

It was just his first tweet about the cancer thing.

This one from 2022 was quite telling. Funny that he admits he would ghost Rampage if he was staked for the Main Event and won! Probably the truth!

https://twitter.com/blankcheckben/st...63687638815133

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

https://twitter.com/blankcheckben/st...63687638815133

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Yes. Don't do that.

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Originally Posted by Tankazoo

https://twitter.com/blankcheckben/st...63687638815133

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don't take advice from a life long scammer (vertucci) on where to direct your charitable donations.

Please, never give money to strangers on the internet. Most poker players are broke degenerates who can't be trusted. I don't blame Druff for not bringing attention to this matter, after the whole Jami Lafay debacle.

Funny enough, there are two incorrect narratives about my involvement in this Mercer thing -- one undeservedly good, and one undeservedly bad.

The undeservedly good narrative is appearing in some poker media that I was the one who blew open the Robert Mercer scandal. False. I did not do any investigating into Mercer, nor did I blow anything open. That was done by Snoopdoug and some of his friends behind the scenes. They didn't inform me of any of this because I'm not friends with any of them. I heard about it when Snoopdoug posted publicly about his suspicions regarding Mercer.

So why are some outlets giving me credit? Because I was the one who amplified the story. Snoopdoug is well known in poker's Twitter Spaces, but beyond that he doesn't have much of a following. I have a bigger and wider range of followers, whereas Snoopdoug mostly has NoCal and Spaces people. Therefore, when I tweeted about it (shortly after Snoopdoug did), it caught on more. Furthermore, since I did the writeup on this thread fairly quickly, PFA was the first website where you could read a comprehensive telling of the Mercer story. This falsely gave people the impression that I was the one who outed Mercer, but that's simply not true. It was Snoopdoug, who also was instrumental in initially promoting Mercer. Of course, Snoopdoug does not deserve any blame because he thought he was doing something nice for a guy dying of cancer, but it was his close involvement with Mercer which motivated him to do the investigating when things started looking funny.


The undeservedly bad narrative has already been discussed in this thread. Some idiots believe I didn't call out Mercer due to sexism. They believe that I took pleasure in tearing down Jami because she was a woman, but when I had the same suspicions about Rob, I gave him a pass due to being a dude. That is so laughable and false, and anyone watching my nearly 20-year history in calling out poker/gambling scams knows it's bullshit. Almost everyone I've called out over the years has been male! If I chose to give males a pass, this site wouldn't exist, nor would PFA Radio, nor would my reputation of outing scammers. Why? Because almost all of them are male! It's absurd to think that, after outing and discussing hundreds of male scammers since 2004, I would suddenly decide to give a cancer scammer a break because he's a guy.

As I already stated, I had zero evidence that Mercer was scamming, and I had no evidence of any past wrongdoing on his part. All I had was a gut feeling suspicion in mid-June. That wasn't enough for me to rake a supposedly terminal cancer patient over the coals, especially given the incredibly harsh treatment I got from many people for questioning some of Jami's story. Had I entered that fray, I would have received incredible hate and extreme vitriol. I would have been seen as the cruel guy who picks on cancer patients. I just couldn't -- not without some kind of concrete evidence. I already went through enough shit about Jami -- and with her I had proof of lies within her Gofundme, regardless of whether or not she had cancer. With Rob, I had nothing I could point to that was a provable lie, and nothing about his reputation prior to this.

Anyway, I don't want to beat a dead horse about the assholes playing the sexism card here, but I just wanted to point out how funny it is that the same story has me improperly lauded as a hero and improperly vilified as a hypocritical sexist who enabled a scammer.

In short, LOL INTERNETS

Great interview with Cody Druff. Well done. I would encourage everyone that hasn’t, to listen to the interview when Druff archives last night’s radio. I didn’t know Cody’s exact medical problems and it was heart breaking to hear what he has gone through. You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.

Very worthy of all the charity he has received and more. Very gracious young man and the true silver lining to this whole story. I wish Cody all the best.

Vertucci finally going to speak out fully about this. Will be interesting to hear. The title card says "fake cancer scammer Rob Mercer" -- no "alleged" in there. Wow!

https://twitter.com/NickVertucciNV/s...11313215459635

https://twitter.com/PuntingStacks/st...21589948157960


I wonder if this will be played on Vertucci's show today.

It has not been publicly released yet, and I never heard all of this the first time around.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Vertucci finally going to speak out fully about this. Will be interesting to hear. The title card says "fake cancer scammer Rob Mercer" -- no "alleged" in there. Wow!

https://twitter.com/NickVertucciNV/s...11313215459635

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Nick gets the people around him to invest in someones fake cancer scam, take no accountability, and then uses the publicity around the scam as an opportunity to tweet out click bait thumbnails.

Sounds perfectly in line with everything the Nick Vertucci is.

I know all the PFA listeners and readers know the Druff is extremely detailed in both his writings & radio segments. Well …Vertucci is not a details guy. I know it seems like I’m always hammering him here but he releases this video today that gives us absolutely nothing new. Just total click bait bullshit.

Really….nothing new. Around 7:00 he even says he doesn’t really know what the donations were because he “wasn’t in charge of the gofundme”. Nick, the GoFundme accounted for around 12K. The vast majority of the money was given directly to him separate of that by a lot of your friends.

There is a massive edit at 7:28. Maybe he was going to give some detail and decided against it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_km1cMNGz_k

Details about Blank Check Ben? No. Anything about how the complaining about the Bellagio Suite went down? No. Just as Nick would say a total “Nothing Burger”. He really speaks a lot without saying much. Which is why he was so good at what he did before. But that isn’t going to get people to tune into a podcast. People want the real deal. This is simply a summary of what we already knew weeks ago. Druff’s radio segment covered all of this.

Just kind of to prove a point Nick did a podcast with Nik Airball click baited is “Airball Broke?” Spoiler alert…he’s not. Nick thought this was going to break the internet and no one gave a shit. Airball is so overexposed at this point people are so over it. But when that podcast didn’t break the internet all of a sudden poker news did a advertorial and some other poker “news” site I never even heard of wrote an article. I suppose that is why Nick is releasing this video weeks too late. He’s clearly very frustrated with the numbers the podcast is doing.

Sorry to say this isn’t even worth a listen.

Nick no one gives a shit man. Another advertorial with no engagement.

https://x.com/highstakesdb/status/17...153161363?s=20

I lost interest in the Nik Airball show.

Everything with him is a cry for attention. There's no way to determine what is real and what is fake regarding him.

The only thing clear is that he has access to a lot of cash, presumably from a trust fund or inheritance.

In his whole feud with Garrett, it was hard to root for anyone. You had a phony attention whore trying to play the role of livestream villain versus a phony attention whore trying to play the role of Mr. Clean.

I don’t have to listen to this to tell you there’s nothing new in it. Vertucci making the rounds. You would think he’s got a movie coming out.

https://x.com/TeamPokerFlops/status/...246019656?s=20

Good news. Hopefully he can go home and have some normalcy soon.

https://x.com/CodyDaniels88/status/1...200850161?s=20

Hilarious that he had an air mattress brought in. I guess the hospital bed was uncomfortable. Never seen that before.

But yeah, I saw that earlier and was very happy to see it ended up okay. The "things are going the wrong direction, I'm on a breathing machine" post, followed by silence, was very ominous.

Went with the old bloody nips story. Def didn’t see that one coming.

https://x.com/PuntingStacks/status/1...719697768?s=20

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Originally Posted by JeffDime

Went with the old bloody nips story. Def didn’t see that one coming.

https://x.com/PuntingStacks/status/1...719697768?s=20

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SO basically, this dipshit self-diagnosed himself. How fucking stupid can you be. Doctors probably wish WebMD and other sites didn't exist for strictly the hey Doc I think I'm dying morons out there. Dude clearly has major mental issues. If he dies more likely it'll be because he offed himself or is the new PC term Unalive wtf seriously.

‘What I did was wrong’: Poker player lied about having cancer to play in WSOP Main Event

https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports...event-2907765/

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Mercer received donations estimated to be valued between $30,000 to $50,000, including a suite at Bellagio in July during the WSOP.

That includes $2,500 he was given by Cody Daniels, a chronically ill poker player from Lake Havasu City, Arizona, who was similarly staked into the Main Event.

Mercer confirmed he was contacted by a representative from GoFundMe for violating its terms of service. He said has no plans to repay the money since he believes he has undiagnosed breast cancer and the donations were made because he was sick.

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LOL.


https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-con..._WEB.jpg?h=560

Gofundme refunding everyone, I'm guessing because of the LVRJ article revealing that he admitted to them that the terminal cancer was fake.

I actually predicted this earlier today:

https://twitter.com/ToddWitteles/sta...29509440172104
https://twitter.com/daniel_shak/stat...93020703252847

Now TMZ is covering it.

https://www.tmz.com/2023/09/20/poker...nt-apologizes/


Unfortunately, the Vallejo police (where Mercer lives) refused to open a case about it, incorrectly calling it a "civil matter".

I encourage anyone who donated to Rob to go to their own local PD and report it, especially if you live in California. Anyone who didn't donate to him cannot report it, as they were not victims.

Perhaps I'll call Vallejo PD tomorrow and see if I can get a lieutenant or captain on the phone, and alert them to the LVRJ and TMZ articles. Sometimes these police departments will respond to potential bad press.

I did nott screenshot it but I do remember Benjamin Lee (Blank Check Ben) donated almost 6K in his name on the GoFundme. Pretty dam close to half the money. I know in his tweet he said he and his friends donated something like 13K total. Still nice to get half of it back.

There are plenty of things wrong with GoFundMe but at least there is a trail. Those who gave wads of cash for him to go balls deep with the Pai Gow really got punished. Maybe another lesson is if someone needs a main event buyin…in the future maybe get them the 10K and some reasonable expense money or accommodations. No need for the degen wads to ignite in the pit.

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Originally Posted by JeffDime

I did nott screenshot it but I do remember Benjamin Lee (Blank Check Ben) donated almost 6K in his name on the GoFundme. Pretty dam close to half the money. I know in his tweet he said he and his friends donated something like 13K total. Still nice to get half of it back.

There are plenty of things wrong with GoFundMe but at least there is a trail. Those who gave wads of cash for him to go balls deep with the Pai Gow really got punished. Maybe another lesson is if someone needs a main event buyin…in the future maybe get them the 10K and some reasonable expense money or accommodations. No need for the degen wads to ignite in the pit.

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100% agree.

What annoys me about Gofundme, and fundraisers for individuals in general, is that it becomes an exercise in virtue signaling and less about getting someone the help they need.

When fundraising drives widely exceed the person's stated need, then the money is just being wasted and might as well go elsewhere. The problem is that people donate over the needed amount because they want to feel like they helped, too. That's why some of these well-publicized Gofundmes have raised hundreds of thousands when the person is asking for orders of magnitude less. The best known one was the generous gas station bum, and that entire thing ended up being a hoax for the purposes of duping the internet into funding all of their lifestyles.

I've always made sure that in the few cases where PFA is raising money for someone, we do it up to the amount needed and then stop. For example, when we raised the $1500 for AHoosierA's legal defense fund, I promised that we would stop raising money at $1500, which was his verified legal bill.

Even if Mercer was telling the truth about the terminal cancer, the proper amount to raise would be $10k plus reasonable travel/hotel expenses, and that's it. No Bellagio suites, no money for the pits, no former porn star hookers, no lavish meals. You want to have a drive to sponsor you for the Main? Great, but your expenses to play it shouldn't be any more than mine, were I pay my own way and stick to the essentials.

Not sure why people kept lavishing money beyond the $12k he asked for. What did they expect he'd do with it? Why was it surprising to see him degenning it off in the pits?

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Now TMZ is covering it.

https://www.tmz.com/2023/09/20/poker...nt-apologizes/


Unfortunately, the Vallejo police (where Mercer lives) refused to open a case about it, incorrectly calling it a "civil matter".

I encourage anyone who donated to Rob to go to their own local PD and report it, especially if you live in California. Anyone who didn't donate to him cannot report it, as they were not victims.

Perhaps I'll call Vallejo PD tomorrow and see if I can get a lieutenant or captain on the phone, and alert them to the LVRJ and TMZ articles. Sometimes these police departments will respond to potential bad press.

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That's actually kind of interesting because I don't know that charges strictly have to be based on the location of the perpetrator. The first thing that comes to mind is that the people who were defrauded could see if they can file charges against him in their own jurisdictions. I'm obviously not a lawyer, much less a prosecutor, but I think there's also the possibility for Federal Wire Fraud if there was anything by way of interstate (he and sender being in different states) transactions.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Now TMZ is covering it.

https://www.tmz.com/2023/09/20/poker...nt-apologizes/


Unfortunately, the Vallejo police (where Mercer lives) refused to open a case about it, incorrectly calling it a "civil matter".

I encourage anyone who donated to Rob to go to their own local PD and report it, especially if you live in California. Anyone who didn't donate to him cannot report it, as they were not victims.

Perhaps I'll call Vallejo PD tomorrow and see if I can get a lieutenant or captain on the phone, and alert them to the LVRJ and TMZ articles. Sometimes these police departments will respond to potential bad press.

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That's actually kind of interesting because I don't know that charges strictly have to be based on the location of the perpetrator. The first thing that comes to mind is that the people who were defrauded could see if they can file charges against him in their own jurisdictions. I'm obviously not a lawyer, much less a prosecutor, but I think there's also the possibility for Federal Wire Fraud if there was anything by way of interstate (he and sender being in different states) transactions.

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100% federal charges could happen here, but it's hard to get the FBI to start cases.

Better off with the local PD and go from there.

Made Los Angeles TV news:

https://twitter.com/1350leather/stat...26356075880525



This story is blowing up all over the country.

Mercer is such a moron. If he just vanished after his first rambling explanation failed, none of this would be happening. I have no idea what he thought he'd accomplish by admitting guilt to Cody Daniels and then to the Las Vegas Review Journal. The LVRJ part was dumbest, as this allowed other mainstream news sources around the country to pick it up and reference them, without fear of being sued.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by Mission146

That's actually kind of interesting because I don't know that charges strictly have to be based on the location of the perpetrator. The first thing that comes to mind is that the people who were defrauded could see if they can file charges against him in their own jurisdictions. I'm obviously not a lawyer, much less a prosecutor, but I think there's also the possibility for Federal Wire Fraud if there was anything by way of interstate (he and sender being in different states) transactions.

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100% federal charges could happen here, but it's hard to get the FBI to start cases.

Better off with the local PD and go from there.

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I agree. I suppose that it's good that everyone who did the GoFundMe is getting a refund. I guess civil suits for anything that didn't take place on GoFundMe/wasn't refunded might be theoretically possible, as well, but that would depend on applicable laws in the jurisdiction; more than that, it's hard to say whether or not Mercer would ever be capable of paying a judgment against him anyway.

As far as Federal goes---it's a slam dunk (provided anything was interstate) if they wanted to pursue it. Mercer has already confessed---twice. On the other hand, there's no real point in pursuing it if he's not going to do time and I don't think him doing time really accomplishes anything aside from wasting Government resources. Not to mention the trial, public defender, etc. Maybe some attorney would offer to defend him, pro bono, seeing the potential media coverage as payment (advertising) in itself.

As far as civil cases go for GoFundMe, I'm not certain that one could still be brought since those donators were made whole. GoFundMe itself isn't actually out much aside from the small(ish) cut of everything they take in and processing fees on the refunds, so I doubt they'd go after Mercer civilly. I guess they're out the money---but that's nothing for them and going after Mercer would keep the bad publicity going more.

I just yanked this off Google, so it's not an advertisement for this law firm (that I haven't even heard of before just now) whatsoever, but:

https://www.bochettoandlentz.com/cri...ts-difference/

It seems to me to be a cut and dry civil fraud case for anyone who did anything off of GoFundMe and incurred actual material losses in so doing. Evidence? Well, Mercer has twice admitted guilt. To me, the only question would be whether or not an attorney would be willing to take it on a contingency fee basis, which could depend on the potential monetary judgment and whether or not the attorney thinks Mercer would be capable of eventually satisfying (read: paying) the judgment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y04TvZNTSIw

Snoopdoug and Cody Daniels featured in this news report.