United States District Court Judge Leonard B. Sand of the Southern District of New York signed a warrant last week, authorizing the seizure of assets belonging to the Full Tilt Poker principals named in the amended civil complaint against the once high flying online poker room.
The warrant, signed September 19th, authorizes the seizure of bank accounts held by Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Rafe Furst, and Full Tilt founder Raymond Bitar. Three of the accounts are specifically listed in the names of Lederer, Ferguson, and Bitar, while one is in the name of HH Lederer Consulting LLC, and one is in the name of Telamonian Ajax Trust, which is known to be tied to Furst.
The warrant was actually issued before Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that a motion had been filed to amend the civil complaint against Full Tilt, PokerStars, Absolute Poker, and payment processors to include Lederer, Ferguson, and Furst. The amended complaint alleges that between April 2007 and April 2011, over $443 million of Full Tilt player funds, funds that were supposed to be separate from company operating funds, were distributed to Full Tilt Board members and owners. Bitar, Lederer, Ferguson, and Furst allegedly received close to $120 million of Full Tilt players’ funds, with Ferguson owed over $62 million more.
Bharara minced no words in a press release, saying:
“As the proposed Amended Complaint describes in detail, Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme. As a result of our enforcement actions this alleged self-dealing scheme came to light. Not only did the firm orchestrate a massive fraud against the U.S. banking system, as previously alleged, Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. As described, Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company.”
The amended complaint also described what the poker community already knew, that Full Tilt had run into problems finding payment processors to draw deposits from customers’ bank accounts and transfer them to Full Tilt. Instead of suspending cashier activity, Full Tilt credited customers with deposits without actually having the money on hand, creating a massive shortfall. All told, estimates place the amount of “phantom” money credited to player accounts at $130 million.
Of the Full Tilt principals who were added to the civil complaint, Rafe Furst has been the only one to make any sort of public statement about the issues at hand. In his post on his blog, “The Emergent Fool,” Furst did not discuss anything that actually happened or will happen, supposedly on the advice of his lawyers, nor did he offer up any apologies to those who lost money with Full Tilt. Rather, the statement a sort of “don’t yell at me, I’m a victim, too,” type of post, one that has been received with incredibly negative responses from the poker community.
Furst’s statement reads, in part, “It sucks to have to endure the character assassination and potshots being taken at me in the media and social networks without being able to defend myself. Privately though I have received incredible support from many of you, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. May you never have to endure something like this, but if you do, I hope you have friends as good as mine.”