Judge calls for Bitar civil case delay
Motion to stay proceedings until criminal case against Full Tilt CEO concluded.
Judge Leonard B Sand has ordered that proceedings in the ongoing civil case against Full Tilt Poker chief executive Ray Bitar be put on hold until the criminal case against him concludes.
Bitar is currently out on bail awaiting confirmation of a trial date following the unsealing of a superseding indictment in which he is accused on three new counts of wire fraud against players who held accounts with the former Alderney licensee.
His fellow Tiltware board members Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst last week submitted motions to dismiss the amended civil complaint against them, citing the validity or otherwise of applying the Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA) to their activities.
PokerStars also met the deadline for their own motion to dismiss, and the United States government yesterday submitted an application to hold all funds relating to PokerStars (and its associated companies) against which there are forfeiture claims to be “[held] in a seized asset account until such claims are resolved and that no final forfeiture of the proposed forfeited funds can take place until the resolution of such claims.”
In addition to the delay concerning Bitar, the government has also filed a motion to dismiss the claim and counterclaim of the Commonwealth of Kentucky concerning domain names tied to Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker, claims which date back to 2008 and returned to the fore last October in relation to the Black Friday proceedings.
Kentucky had looked to stay its claims to fulltiltpoker.com, pokerstars.com, ultimatebet.com and absolutepoker.com, however the Department of Justice (DoJ) has called for the claims to be stricken altogether on the grounds of “lack of standing”.