US Feds Subpoena Full Tilt Witness

@JDNewitt may or may not be prohibited by law from live-tweeting a court-ordered visit with federal prosecutors in New York. #pokerWTF?

Wicked Chops is reporting that Jason Newitt has been subpoenaed by a US federal court in the Southern District of New York. Though not confirmed, they are comfortably saying that JDN has an order to appear (presumably before a grand jury?) on Tuesday, September 14.

Newitt, a well-known figure in Las Vegas poker circles, is probably most famous for being crippled by yours truly in the Pokerati half-and-half tourney at Detox — Dude, I admit it was a bad call for all my chips with only a 10-high flush draw! So I got there, deal with it! That hand would propel me to near-victory while setting him up for an early departure. But probably more relevant to the Feds is info from JDN as:

• a loyal Full Tilter who hooked up players with patches
• sender of the infamous Gobboboy email, a forwarding oopsie that may or may not have revealed Howard Lederer to be kinda a big jerk to fat kids, but also someone calling the shots at Full Tilt
• someone who claims to have received distributions for his supposed ownership in Full Tilt
• someone who sued FTP after getting fired and said distributions suddenly stopped, laying out ownership and operational structures at Full Tilt.

Oh, and because he\’ll get pissed if we don\’t acknowledge his credibility as a witness, Newitt has a WSOP Circuit ring (NLH), a Venetian Deep Stack win (O8), a Remington for his victory at the LAPC (PLO-8), and a 25thish place finish in the Pokerati NLH/PLO Championship.

Good guy, probably knows a lot he\’s never revealed before under oath … but talk about an awkward position. In his suit he claims he\’s a partial owner in Full Tilt, but were he to win that civil case, then he could be in some hot water with SDNY, which, in addition to prosecuting payment processors, has gone on record declaring Full Tilt\’s biggest competitor, PokerStars.com, as facilitating an \”illegal gambling business\”.

Meanwhile … Mini-FTOPS is going, wheee! I wonder how many DOJers have, in the course of investigations, have gotten hooked on online poker and are playing either Mini-FTOPS or WCOOP, telling their bosses it\’s \”research\”.