Postle’s legal team’s motion
The legal team representing alleged poker cheat Mike Postle in his libel suit against numerous notable individuals from the poker world have filed paperwork with the court to drop him as their client. The head of the legal team, Steven T. Lowe, filed the motion on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, to the Sacramento Superior Court where the case’s early stages are continuing.
The filing by Lowe stated the reason for backing out of the case: “Client [Postle] has failed to comply with the written agreement between the firm and the client, and communication has otherwise ceased between the client and attorney.”
However, Mac VerStandig, the attorney representing the 88 plaintiffs, tweeted a photo of the document, saying: “Posted without comment.”
It is essential to know that VerStandig’s tweet was a “Declaration in Support of Attorney’s Motion to be Relieved as Counsel,” which was filed by Steven T. Lowe of Lowe & Associates, a prominent entertainment law firm in Beverly Hills”
Posted without comment. pic.twitter.com/Z75y7dSANI
— Mac VerStandig (@mac_verstandig) December 10, 2020
In early October Postle filed a defamation case against a number of defendants after earlier in the year being a co-defendant alongside Sacramento’s Stones Gambling Hall in a fraud lawsuit by 86 allegedly cheated players who claimed that from 2018 to 2019 at Stones Postle had won more than $250,000 playing almost exclusively $1-$3 and $2-$5 NLH cash games.
In the case, the lead plaintiff, whistleblower Veronica Brill, believed Postle cheated after watching him make suspicious moves throughout his heater. Brill decided to make the allegations go public after her reporting her concerns to Stones Tournament Director, Justin Kuraitis, fell deaf on ears.
Kuaratis was also in charge of the live stream. Many poker pros suspected Kuaratis to be the conduit to the hole cards after watching and analyzing video footage from the stream.
Even though nobody has ever been able to point out how Postle cheated, several theories abound. One of them is that Postle hid a bone conduction headphone in his hat, another that he had information sent to his cellphone, which he kept on his lap while playing, making sure no one noticed.
The defendants in the lawsuit include: Joey Ingram, ESPN, PokerNews.com (iBus Media Limited), Haralabos Voulgaris, Daniel Negreanu, Todd Witteles, Upswing Poker (associated with Doug Polk), Seat Open LLC, Jonathan Little Holdings LLC, Solve for Why Academy LLC and Run it Once, Inc. (associated with Phil Galfond).
Due to the fact that Postle’s lawyers have decided to withdraw from the case, his libel lawsuit might not go further in view of his no longer having any legal representation.
The legal team’s motion will be ruled on on January 14, 2021, by Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi, the presiding Superior Court Judge in California.
Eric Bensomochan, Witteles’ lawyer, said via a podcast on Wednesday that the most likely reason why Postle’s legal team backed out was due to a lack of payment.
