The DOJ has laid out more of its case against Isai Scheinberg, Ray Bitar, et al — in a 58-page response to the response from two Black Friday indictees, payment processor Chad Elie and the Utah banker John Campos.

Among other denials, Campos and Elie sought to get much of the case thrown out on the grounds that the UIGEA is a bad law and/or poker isn’t gambling. With the action back on the DOJ, Preet Bharara assistant Arlo Devlin Brown delivers some rather compelling legal composition (the best writing is in the footnotes, imho) that reads like a big STFU from SDNY … with a message of hey, better watch it or we could indict the whole damn poker industry!

I’m paraphrasing, obv … but here’s the full Government’s Response to Defendants’ Pre-Trial Motions. They purport to have a mountain of evidence ready for trial … and show a century’s worth of precedent to snuff out any hopes that poker people could actually win this case.

With the standard disclaimer of “I’m not a lawyer but …” some fascinating elements include:

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Rock Paper Scissors? The last time a rich French dude came to New York to bail out the Americans was Rochambeau in 1781 — fewer than eight WSOPs before George Washington established the DOJ office currently trying to put the hurt on various Tiltboys.

Still trying to wrap my teeth around the latest chapter in the saga of the Rise and Fall of Full Tilt Poker, with the Bernard Tapie Groupe in France saying the DOJ has given them a thumbs up on the purchase of certain Full Tilt assets … with which they’ll supposedly be able to make-good with Full Tilt’s non-American players and resume non-American operations.

So if this is correct — and we can talk later why we presume more truth in this story than others before it — Preet Bharara and his top-ranked American prosecution office wouldn’t have to worry about the Euros … which would be good for the DOJ, I presume, because who needs to mess with the foreigners and the incredibly complex international litigation and trade wars they potentially bring … especially when the real prize Preet seeks is closer to $1 billion.

For a better understanding, be sure to check out Wendeen Eolis’s latest piece in Poker Player Newspaper — Decoding Full Tilt Poker – DOJ – Tapie Plans — which provides a much needed sobriety check and skillful reading between the lines. Even though she may not be on the frontlines like Subject:Poker, as a Manhattan legal consultant in her non-poker life, Eolis has been down to the battlefield a time or two … and seems to understand ways the Southern District of New York more intimately than most.

The Tapie deal does offer the first glimmers of light at the end of a long tunnel, but it seems American players might wanna hold off on calls for “ONE TIME!” lest they become self-fulfilling prophesies of disappointment and despair. Because for any justifiable exuberance over the likelihood that European and “rest of world” players might see PokerStars-style payouts before the end of 2011 … American players with online poker (bank?) accounts in limbo now know only that the DOJ will be looking at them separately in determining who’s a “victim” and who is Isildur1 who’s potentially a less deserving accomplice.

If you are out real American dollars in the Full Tilt Poker collapse, the US government is apparently your friend. That’s the message of Preet Bharara and the Department of Justice, who put out a statement to get those dumfugkers from 2+2 to stop hassling us clarify the status of player accounts in light of revelations about Full Tilt’s insolvency.

In it they spell out a process they are going through to get money from anyone who mighta suckled from the Full Tilt mother-teat, and give an indefinite timeline (months at a minimum) to tell all those thinking this could be the “final chapter”, “dude, we’re just getting started, here.”

The full DOJ statement is below, which ends with a reminder about 28 C.F.R. Part 9, the regulation that binds them.

Meanwhile, not sure if this is a good, bad, or meh-for-poker … but the DOJ is coming under scrutiny over seized assets. Just this month — after an investigation sparked by a junior prosecutor in the Southern District of New York concerned about plausible shenanigans in the remission of Bernie Madoff loot — the Justice Department’s own Inspector General cited serious deficiencies in the US Marshals’ handling of seized assets. The OIG wrote a report that reads kinda like a Full Tilt indictment … at a time when they are getting flack (from both the left and the right) for essentially abusing some 400 laws allowing them to take money and other assets from people who may or may not face criminal charges.

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