Thursday, October 21, 2010

Online Poker Cheat Collusion Victim Brings Lawsuit Against Six Well-Known Online Poker Players in Bizarre Case!

Source: onlinepoker.net

A Florida resident by the name of Scott Crespo has made the headlines recently, after filing a complaint on the 12th October against six well-known online pros at the US Northern District Court of Illinois.

In his lawsuit he is attempting to recover “illegal poker gambling losses” while accusing the players, amongst other things, of colluding with each other and cheating opponents on the internet.

Scott Crespo is seeking to recover triple the amount lost to the group incurred over approximately 700 tournaments on major US sites, and the names of the players cited in his filing have raised a few eye-brows as it includes a talented group of pros.

The six players named in the lawsuit include;

1; Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka with over $2 million in online winnings and $2.3 million from live events

2; Andy “BKice” Seth with $2.182 million in online winnings and $1.14 million from live events

3; Benjamin “Chong94” LeFew with $895,000 in online winnings and $82,000 from live events

4; Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania with $3.3 million in online winnings and $273,000 from live events

5; Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan with $2.73 million in online winnings and $290,000 from live events

6; Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman with $2.9 million in online winnings and $1.9 million from live events.

At the heart of Scott Crespo’s complaint is the players formation of a group called PokerHaus, which has its own website and is located at 1103 S. Busey Ave, Urbana on the campus of the University of Illinois. Scott Crespo’s complaint alleges that the six defendants used “real estate or property for the purposes of gambling” in the form of Pokerhaus. He also accuses them of having “actively recruited other individuals to participate in illegal gambling activity” and “committed acts of collusion and cheating while playing online poker.”

As this bizarre case gets going, apparently the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) are already considering throwing their weight behind the accused players. I will continue to bring you updates to this story as they occur.

My take: Well, in spite of the Poker Players' Alliance support for the accused, I think this guy Crespo has got a case. God for their jugulars, Scotty!