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.
Speaking of Oklahoma .. Clonie officially lost her lawsuit against Full Tilt last week. Though attorneys tell me it’s very strange that this case couldn’t get at least to the discovery phase — I mean it was all out there very publicly … she clearly had some relationship with Full Tilt, so in most cases being able to dispute the contractual nature of said relationship would be perfunctory.
Anyhow, bummer for Clonie and selfish-bummer for those of us who were curious to hear what the likes of Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar, and Howard Lederer had to say about the early formation of Full Tilt under oath in the heat of deposition.
But here’s the judge’s three-strikes and you’re out ruling, with some explanation of why she will not get her day in Federal court. Seems more a matter of legal strategy than the merits of the case to me … but maybe some others with more-than-none law-schooling will weigh in on that.
Her attorneys, Howard & Howard, btw, will have another go in Nevada state court moving forward representing Jason Newitt and that other guy, Hilton Warmback in their similar contract disputes with Full Tilt.
Mostly unrelated, but hey, there’s a video … the day before this ruling came down, Newitt won the PLO/8 tourney and about $17k at the LAPC. Not bad for a guy who may or may not own a piece of Full Tilt:
The Full Tilt legal battles are heating up … and this time they are on the offensive, suing Cycalona Gowen in federal court.
Full Tilt (specifically Tiltware, LLC, out of California) is not seeking money from her beyond court costs and attorney fees. But they do want a clear declaration that she does not have the 1 percent ownership interest she alleges.
So why would they be doing this? Well according to the Nevada lawyers I’ve spoken to, that’s hard to say …
Essentially, they’re looking for the court to rule against her without having a trial. She goes to court again on February 1, for the third and last time, with the court deciding if her Third-Amended Complaint has merits to proceed. But if Full Tilt wins, and the judge says, yeah, sorry, we can’t waste a jury’s time with this … then maybe they don’t win enough?
The Full Tilt Poker legal team is busy. On the heels of the presumably still-unresolved Clonie Gowen $40 million lawsuit, another case was filed in the Nevada court system on September 11, 2009. This is the only information available thus far:
Jason Newitt
v.
Tiltware; Full Tilt Poker; Pocket Kings Ltd.; Pocket Kings Consulting Ltd.; Raymond Bitar; Howard Lederer
9/11/2009
Contract action. Plaintiff says he was unfairly fired, and that his distribution payments were unfairly ceased. Defendants then took control of his ownership.
Newitt was the former Tilt employee responsible for inadvertently forwarding Howard Lederer e-mail about Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke (the “freak and very weird dude”) — an “oops” that revealed a little something about Lederer and Bitar’s positions and powers within the Full Tilt money machine. Whether or not this had anything to do with Newitt’s dismissal and the subsequent lawsuit remains to be seen until we get our sneaky little hands on the court documents.
The Full Tilt Poker legal team is busy. On the heels of the 