Stones livestream player Mike Postle accused of "live superusing"

[Belly Buster]

Hindsight is wonderful of course but it's a shame that a bunch of players didn't coordinate to grab Postle's phone and hat off him when was cheatingat the table, so that there was some physical evidence to present.

[Dan Druff]

It actually didn't need hindsight.

Veronica reported this in March 2019, and the cheating continued for 6 more months.

During that time, Justin could have watched him carefully (if he wasn't in on it, which is a huge IF), and had security grab both Postle's hat and phone as soon as he was acting suspiciously.

[Dan Druff]

New filing in the case today.

Developments:

- Time extended again, from 9/11/20 to 10/1/20

- Settling plaintiffs listed. Veronica is not on the list of settling plaintiffs (which isn't a surprise).

- 60 of the 88 agreed to settle. This is below the threshhold of 65 demanded by Stones, but it seems they're okay with it.

- Mac is going to file a motion to withdraw as the attorney of the 28 non-settling plaintiffs (including Veronica). While this isn't an automatic (the court has to approve it), it was noted that none of these 28 people are objecting, though some were "non-responsive" to communication about the matter. It is likely, in my opinion, that this will be granted. This will happen by September 11.

I have a copy of the filing but I won't bother to post it, because it's not all that interesting, beyond the above.

[Dan Druff]

Most of the 60 names settling aren't known.

However, Jeff "Boski" Sluzinksi and Taylor Carroll (aka "Hart Banson") are among the 60 names who agreed to settle.

[Dan Druff]

As expected, Mac dropped 27 clients today from representation. I thought there were 88 plaintiffs, but maybe there were 87? I counted 60 accepting and 27 rejecting.

I have the filing from today, and see that these people were served by email, and are no longer being represented by Mac.

This is a procedural matter, and nothing shocking or scandalous. This is required in order to exclude them from the settlement. None of the 27 objected to being dropped.

Among the names: Christian Soto Vasquez (coach at Matt Berkey's Solve For Why Academy), Alisha Daniels-Duckworth (the good friend of Veronica's who drank a lot on some of the Postle streams, and recently appeared with her in an interview), Kyle Kitigawa (player and sometimes commentator at Stones -- also played with me at 100-200 limit holdem there), Matt Holtzclaw, and of course Veronica Brill.

[Dan Druff]

Its appears the 88th person is Kasey Mills, who commentated on the game sometimes (similar to Veronica).

I am hearing Kacey was on the fence, but ultimately took the settlement, but I'm not 100% sure. She was not dropped by Mac, according to the document, so I'm assuming what I heard was correct.

[JeffDime]

Its appears the 88th person is Kasey Mills, who commentated on the game sometimes (similar to Veronica).

I am hearing Kacey was on the fence, but ultimately took the settlement, but I'm not 100% sure. She was not dropped by Mac, according to the document, so I'm assuming what I heard was correct.

I was sure it was a clerical error and Boski got paid twice.

[turdzilla]

Several avoiding the restrictions of a settle agreement and can tell/sell their stories.

[Dan Druff]

Pretty much an explosion from the Postle side today, as his side is now "speaking out", including both Postle himself and Justin Kuraitis. As you might imagine, his trollish friends on Twitter are going nuts this morning.

I'll start with the Justin statement:

I am happy to announce that 62 plaintiffs and their counsel Maurice VerStandig have agreed to dismiss all claims against me in the Veronica Brill vs. Mike Postle case. They have also confirmed they have found no evidence against myself or Stones and have concluded I was not involved in any cheating at Stones. While I am gratified that they now acknowledge the truth, the pain and unfairness of their allegations and the wrath of the social media mob and internet bullying lingers.

On the advice of counsel, I have remained silent and not commented on the parade of false accusations that have been leveled against me. Now that this is over, I want to move on and not spend the next 5 years in the muck. There are some things I need tosay before I move on, because the process has been so disheartening and upsetting.

In the fall of 2019, I watched as the “poker community” and wanna-be “celebrity” commentators on Twitter/YouTube falsely accused me of being a knowing participant in what was allegedly the “biggest poker cheating scandal in history.”

The allegations against me were false. However, the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control still conducted an investigation with which I completely and voluntarily cooperated. Because of the investigation and then civil litigation, I was counseled to remain silent and let the process play out without making public comment. I did so, all the while wondering if the record would ever be set straight, if the poker community would ever take me back and if those that falsely accused me would ever apologize or if they would just go on to the next effort to collect clicks and followers.

I watched in utter amazement as Joey Ingram devoted hour after hour to “PostleGate.” Some of the videos were entertaining and they certainly were great for increasing Ingram’s popularity, but as I watched them it became clear that Ingram was peddling false statistics, cherry-picking hands to fit his theories and ignoring data that did not fit his version of the story.

Suddenly facts ceased to be important anymore and it all became about who could come up with the most outlandish story. For example, Marle Cordeiro fanned the flames regarding me and seemed to imply on twitter that my car was purchased with money I obtained from the cheating scandal. In fact, I bought that car from an acquaintance on December 4th 2017 which was more than 8 months before the alleged cheating supposedly started. Doug Polk, Daniel Negreanu, Matt Berkey, Jason Somerville and many others not worth naming also jumped at the chance to be in the spotlight
with numerous false claims.

The propaganda machine that these guys created was prolific but it was all a case of confirmation bias. Anything that fit in their narrative was trumpeted and the many things that contradicted their story were simply ignored.

I am ashamed to say that back in October 2019 after listening to so much propaganda, I even went through a period of time where I wondered if it was possible that Mike Postle had cheated. I remember being so depressed with the thought that I could have missed something so “obvious.” The news spiraled out of control with PokerNews making ridiculous claims, countless op-eds mindlessly parroted and even some mainstream media attention by ESPN, Barstool Sports and Haralabos Voulgaris.

During this time, a Poker media company called Rounderlife emerged from the darkness and was the only one doing actual research. Even the suing parties were relying on the made up internet sleuth data. The “poker community” systematically shut out and ignored RounderLife magazine to make sure that their content did not go mainstream. Why wouldn’t they want it to go mainstream? Was it because RounderLife was putting out factual content that did not support their narrative? Was it easier for Brill and company to claim Rounderlife was biased than to actually address the facts presented?

For example Rounderlife put out an article regarding me that accurately pointed out there were multiple instances where Postle wins big when I am verifiably out of town and loses big when I am verifiably at Stones Gambling Hall (My locations are verifiable by my social media post). This information was COMPLETELY IGNORED by the poker media and conspiracy theorists!

There’s another Rounderlife article which points out that Postle’s win rate was overly inflated by systematically leaving losing sessions off of the lawsuit. If you intentionally exclude losing sessions, guess how that affects the “win rate.” The irony is that multiple losing sessions were unknowingly included in the lawsuit too because the plaintiffs had bad data that said those session were wins when in fact, they were losing sessions. The videos are right there on YouTube and anyone that wants to spend the time to go through them can confirm the objective proof published by Rounderlife.

How would you accurately determine how much Postle won or lost? You would watch the YouTube videos and evaluate the amount of money Postle bet, then deduct it from the pots he won. This would provide his actual win/loss rate. Other than Rounderlife, not one internet outlet took the time to evaluate and compute the real Postle win rates.

In the middle of all of this, the “poker community” celebrates Veronica Brill for being the whistle blower and the hero of the story. For the record this story was entirely built on half-truths. Veronica did approach me in March 2019 and she did claim that Mike Postle was cheating. When I asked her if she had any basis for her claim or anything to support it, Veronica had nothing but her suspicion. Still she demanded that I pull Postle from the game right away. To be clear, Brill provided me with no numbers, no video of suspected hands, no charts and no evidence/facts whatsoever. She has since apparently claimed that she provided me with a collection of videos showing weird plays but that is false as well. Brill only presented to me her “belief” that Postle was cheating.

I told Veronica that I thought she was wrong but I also told her if she really thought Mike was doing something underhanded, she should stop inviting him to her “Veronica and Friends” game. That was her game. She decided who to invite (or not invite), not me, not anyone else at Stones. So what did Veronica do? The very next month, Veronica texted her player list to me for her game and Mike Postle was on it. In fact, Veronica continued to invite Postle on every list that she sent me after that conversation. If Veronica thought Postle was cheating, why did she invite him to all of her games?

In any event, the fact that Veronica invited Postle to her game shortly after she made her comments to me seemed to confirm that this was just “Veronica being Veronica.” You see, Veronica has this penchant for making outrageous statements and frivolous claims about people. The irony is she has done this in the past to some of her co-plaintiffs in this lawsuit, who now publicly claim to be her friends. She would often make these claims to me and after a while, it became a lot like “the boy who cried wolf.”

For those of you who think Veronica is a hero, do you think she told the other people she invited to the games that she thought Postle was cheating? What kind of hero invites her other friends to a game with someone she suspected of cheating?

In the last year I have seen a community that I considered family turn against me. 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. I cared about these people, I put a lot of effort into creating events/programs for them and I cared deeply about my work and my integrity. I took it all very seriously. I put everything I had into it. I loved making my poker people happy.

Turns out this “community” did not care about right or wrong, fairness or a critical review of the actual facts. It was a rush to judgment with the twitter mob interested in saying outrageous things and jumping to unwarranted conclusions, all in an effort to get followers, clicks and likes. It is all ego driven. Even the ones that could have spoken out and knew this whole thing was all bullshit were silenced by their sponsors.

On another note, I am just so sad that so many of you soiled Kevin Racks’ name to further the hate and incite the Twitter mob. Kevin was an incredible person. I had the privilege of knowing him and becoming friends with him at the end of his life. Kevin should be remembered for all of the goodness within him and as a bright light in the poker community. The fact that he has been tied to this situation in such a manipulative and
cynical way makes his loss that much more painful.

Lastly I want to publicly thank Rudy Robledo, Kirk Rexford and the countless local Sacramento poker players who had my back and circulated a petition to bring me back to Stones. This of course was never tweeted about or reported by PokerNews but by the time it happened, I was used to anything positive about me being ignored. It is in times like these that you find out who your real friends are and their character is revealed. I found out that I don’t have nearly as many friends as I thought I did, but the ones that I do have are really incredible.

The Twitter mob is real, it is ugly, and it has real life consequences. I have never before experienced so much hatred, ignorance and even threats of violence. All this just because of one person on Twitter and the mob of people who were willing to believe her without facts. It is pretty surreal to think about in retrospect. These social media influencers need to be held accountable for what they say against people and especially if they are accusing someone of illegal activity without evidence. Social media provided them with a platform to hide behind a computer while hurling false accusations at me.

Right or wrong doesn’t seem to matter to them. It is the person with the loudest platform and the most followers that will get heard and ultimately believed and that is a dark commentary on the poker community that must be reconciled for the good of its own future.

Sincerely
Justin Kuraitis

The statement itself (identical to the above, in PDF format) is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EnT...WxHLDY8gf/view

I'll get to commenting on this shortly.

[Dan Druff]

Remember this Tweet from September 29, 2019?

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/StonesLivePoker/status/1178372709144645632

"Earlier this year an accusation was made that a player was cheating in our game. We conducted a full investigation & found no evidence that any cheating had occurred. Stones Live stream remains a secure poker streaming platform. The recent allegations are completely fabricated."


Since Justin is "innocent", certainly he can describe to us what he did to investigate the situation in March 2019 when Veronica brought it to him, as well as what he did to monitor Mike for the next 6 months while he played on stream.

We never got an answer to this.

[Dan Druff]

Here's a Sacramento Bee article about the lawsuit and subsequent settlement. Postle comments in the article in arrogant fashion.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article245724175.html

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,” Postle wrote. “It won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world.

This all goes way beyond just my innocence, but includes an entire incredible 17+ year story along with it, and what’s happened since the allegations. In fact, it’s such a mind blowing story, that it’s being told to Dave Broome at 25/7 Productions who will be producing a wild documentary for the world to see on it!

I’ve been waiting for many, many months on this and I’m anxious for it to finally come out. So to all the detractors and accusers who have asked, ‘Why hasn’t he spoken or provided his evidence of innocence and explanations?’

Well guess what? ... Now you know.

This makes it sound like it bamboozled this Dave Broome guy (a documentary maker), and there is an idiotic pro-Postle documentary in the works. Lovely.


Also, here's the statement by Mac, as required by the lawsuit settlement:

After reviewing evidence with the cooperation of Stones, my co-counsel and I have found no evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ claims against Stones, Stones Live Poker, or Justin Kuraitis. 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.

Based on our investigation, we are satisfied that Stones and Mr. Kuraitis were not involved in any cheating that may have occurred. While Stones has not spoken publicly regarding the details of their investigation during its pendency, its counsel and Mr. Kuraitis’ counsel have been immensely cooperative behind-the-scenes.

I like Mac, and I understand that you have to make statements like these when lawsuits are settled, but I feel this goes too far to exonerate them. I had initially been told that it would be a generic statement that there was "no evidence found" of them being involved in the cheating, and that would be that. Unfortunately, the statement really does read like an exoneration -- saying that Mac and his co-counsel are "satisfied" that Stones and Kuraitis weren't involved, and that they were very cooperative. I doubt they were actually cooperative (they certainly weren't with the rest of the poker community), and I don't believe Kuraitis is exonerated by any of this. He either knew or should have known.

I know that Stones probably demanded a statement like this, and wouldn't settle without it. Ultimately it was the clients having to sign off on it. However, I wish the statement weren't so detailed and strong in its insistence that Justin did nothing wrong.

To be fair, it is my opinion that Stones upper management did NOT know about any of this, until after the scandal broke. However, I believe they honestly think at this point that there was no cheating, and that all allegations were false.

[Dan Druff]

Justin is going hard at everyone right nowe, but conveniently he's ignoring my tough question about what he did to investigate in March (and what he did to monitor Mike going forward).

Here are his other tweets so far today:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305915879108964353

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https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305913545209475072

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305917130953506817

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305918517351313413

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305919053781852160

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305920929336188928

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305921228733992960

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305919970023407618

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305922297962942464

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/JFKPokerTD/status/1305923303245193216

[Dan Druff]

Justin's statement is garbage.

It's not a short statement, yet it spends a long time bashing Veronica, claims that a half-hearted investigation by CA Gaming exonerates him, and cries about how the poker community betrayed him.

You know what it doesn't contain? Any explanation of how he investigated the accusations in March 2019, or what he did to watch Postle after that. Remember, Postle played on stream for 6 months after Veronica's accusation, and is accused of continuing to cheat during that time.

That is what we want to hear. Instead, this is a self-pity party, which reads like it was written by an emotional woman who can't believe her best friend slept with her boyfriend.

[Dan Druff]

Justin getting killed in the responses on Twitter, as you'd expect.

He's totally avoiding my question, too, even though he's answering other (much easier) ones, and has clearly seen what I've asked. I've repeated it to where I've asked three times now.

LOL

I doubt he will answer me because it's the one question he can't answer without looking super guilty.

[JoeD]

I'll be sure to put the Mike Postle movie on the shelf right next to the Mike Matusow movie, just as soon as it comes out.

https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...sow-Movie-Star

[Starbucks Spunk Bucket]

[AhoosierA]

I would love to know Justin's opinion on cases like OJ simpson & Casey Anthony.

Clearly he thinks both are 100% innocent right?

[JeffDime]

There’s not much to add, Druff really covered this well. I guess it’s just some more gasoline to add to the dumpster fire that is 2020. Mac was def not standing when he signed that statement regarding JFK. He was bent over and grabbing his ankles. At least to a layman (me) it looks that way.

It looks like he may of bit off more than he could chew on this. Do I know for a fact that a more specialized and/or local lawyer could of negotiated better terms and certainly a more reasonable statement? No, but I would bet that way if I had to.

Even if the California laws are diseased when it comes to these matters, if a clearly negligent entity and employee can get off this easy the justice system is a fucking joke.

Looking forward to Postle’s Mockumentary. I hope it’s like the Blair Witch Project, and all the Postle Propagandists get lost in the woods.

[duped_samaritan]

Am I remembering correctly that Justin was floor for the live stream more often than anyone else, or was there another guy?

[JeffDime]

Am I remembering correctly that Justin was floor for the live stream more often than anyone else, or was there another guy?

I believe he was officially the “Tournament Director” for Stones. Effectively, he was the Executive Producer for the livestream “Stones Live”. It may have not been his title, but from all reports he was the one in charge of the stream. He was in the back with a tech guy and had access to the feed in real time. He was there for most of the sessions in question, but was in Las Vegas during the World Series. When Justin wasn’t there, Postle seemed to appear less on the stream with much worse results.