US Government Targets Full Tilt Poker Board of Directors

The US Department of Justice has amended the civil complaint filed against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and several payment processors to include several individuals involved at Full Tilt Poker. The new amendments appear to be geared towards charging the directors of Full Tilt Poker with defrauding players who played real money poker on the site.

According to the complaint, Full Tilt Poker owed players approximately $390 million as of March 31, 2011, and still owes players worldwide more than $300 million today. Furthermore, about half of that amount, or $150 million, is owed to players from the United States.

However, the most sensational part of the amended complaint may be the monetary figures attached to several prominent members of Full Tilt Poker management. The complaint now names a board of directors for Full Tilt Poker: Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafe Furst. According to the report, that board paid themselves – and several other individuals with ownership stakes – somewhere in the range of $444 million in the four year period from April 2007 to April 2001. According to the Department of Justice, none of this money has been used to settle the site’s outstanding debts.

“As of the date of this Amended Complaint,” it states, “neither Full Tilt Poker nor the individual owners who received over $443 million in distributions have repaid any of the more than approximately $300 million the company owes to players around the world.”

The complaint goes on to charge the members of the Full Tilt Poker board of directors with money laundering, and says that the four “FTP Insider Defendants are liable to the Government for a sum of money representing the amount of property, funds, or monetary instruments involved in the money laundering offenses described above.” It then goes on to lay out just how much money the four members of that board are liable for, including the following totals of no less than:

-          $40,954,781,53 for Bitar;

-          $41,856,010.92 for Lederer;

-          $25 million for Ferguson;

-          $11,706,323.96 for Furst.

It is unknown whether this marks the extent of the individuals in FTP management that will be targeted by the US government, or if further charges will be levied against other part owners. It has long been suspected that many prominent poker players had some stake in Full Tilt, though how much they might own – or whether many of these rumors were even true – has been unknown.