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Mike Postle has been ordered to pay almost $27,000 in attorney’s fees to Todd Witteles. The PokerFraudAlert founder was among prominent poker personalities listed as defendants in Postle’s $330 million defamation lawsuit in 2020.
Witteles fought back by filing an “anti-SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) motion against Postle, seeking to have his libel claims be declared as “frivolous” and the case be dismissed altogether. Now, the judgment has been handed down in favor of Witteles, leaving Postle on the hook for $26,982 in damages.
Presiding California Superior Court Judge Shama H. Mesiwala ruled that online posts and phrases in Witteles’ poker forum constituted free speech and were fully protected by the First Amendment. Furthermore, the subject discussed in the forum “concerned matters of public interest“.
Judge Mesiwala also noted that Postle’s act of voluntarily dropping his lawsuit means he automatically loses the anti-SLAPP motion.
Attorney’s Fees Reduced
While Witteles claimed victory in his anti-SLAPP motion against Postle, the total amount of legal costs he originally sought was reduced. Judge Mesiwala stated that some of the charges billed by Witteles’ camp were “excessive and unnecessary“. She deducted $16,332.50 from the original $43,314.50 indicated in the motion, meaning Postle now owes Witteles nearly $27,000.
Reacting to the ruling, Witteles’ lawyer Eric Bensamochan said that while they’re disappointed that the attorney fees were reduced, they accept and respect the judgment without additional argument. Bensamochan added that his client intends on vigorously pursuing Postle to force the alleged cheater pay the monies to his client.
Witteles and his legal team initially offered not to proceed with the anti-SLAPP motion if Postle would drop Witteles from the list of defendants in his defamation lawsuit, but Postle turned down the offer. Veronica Brill also filed a similar motion against Postle and she is also expected to be awarded attorney’s fees when the ruling is released on May 19.
In September 2019, Postle made headlines when he was implicated in a massive cheating scandal involving livestreamed cash games at Stones Gambling Hall. Poker player and former Stones commentator Brill dropped the bomb on Twitter, leading to a multi-million lawsuit filed by dozens of players affected by the alleged cheating.
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In June 2020, a US district judge dismissed the lawsuit against Postle, Stones, and tournament director Justin Kuraitis, citing California law.
Some of the plaintiffs subsequently agreed to a settlement with both Stones and Kuraitis, while Postle launched his own libel case against his accusers, which included some of poker’s top personalities and media entities, such as Joey Ingram, Daniel Negreanu, Haralabos Voulgaris, Doug Polk and Upswing Poker, the ESPN, Veronica Brill, Witteles and many more. Postle dropped the case in April.
Natalie,
Here’s what I disagree with:
1. The judge said the presumption is that Witteles won the anti-slapp meaning that’s her basis for awarding atty fees…not that he actually won the anti-slapp motion.
2. Postle dropped the case which mean the argument of Anti-SLAPP is moot and therefore no such argument took place.
3. Witteles fees are awarded by default of Postle dropping the lawsuit.
4. Witteles motion to continue with the Anti-Slapp was denied as the judge cannot legally allow a motion to stand when the case has been dropped.
5. The reason they wanted to continue with the anti-slapp motion is bcuz they know Postle can refile.
6. In June 2020 the original lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Shubb only against Postle…not against Stones or Kuraitis.
7. The settlement in September 2020 was with Stones and Kuraitis and it for 40k from the 30M lawsuit filed and it was split between 62 plaintiffs. Most reports say 61 but I will tell you it’s 62. I will give you one clue on #62…her name rhymes with Carle Mordeiro. You should reach out to her on how she snuck in since she lost her lawsuit in Nevada. The details will expose this sham of a scandal.
And is it too much for me to ask you to use your expertise in casino audit and security to look into the case further? My critique is that you spouted off the same bs as everyone else when you are actually an expert in audit….so go audit the numbers and the footage and pls write a meaningful article.
That’s where the story is, it’s in the audit.
Jackass Jay
Hi Jay,
Thank you for your response. I can see you are not happy with how the story was written, we pride ourselves in doing our research before publishing a story and feel this story in particular was written with the same process. We also note that many other new outlets have been reporting a similar story which can’t be a coincidence. There is no need to get personal, you could have just mentioned what you disagreed with, I am not a lawyer as you mentioned yourself, but as I wrote Postle has been ordered to pay $27,000 in attorney’s fees meaning he lost. If Postle takes further action then we will of course cover it in the future.
Hey Natalie,
How about you write about the supposed data that was used to publicly convict Postle which is all made up BS. Phil Galfond and Matt Berkey were suppose to compile data a year later to prove that Postle cheated but that has yet to come out (bcuz the real data proves he didn’t cheat). Key point: a year later after social media and media outlets convicted Postle on lies and deceit.
For someone who used to work in audit and your profile claims to be all about Math…ur article is shit. Just a lot of regurgitating the same BS over and over again. For god sakes have an opinion if you’re going to write!
Did you know the forensic audit came back squeaky clean and that Veronica’s lawyer wrote a statement saying there was “no evidence of cheating”? I’m sure you did but you don’t write about that either.
The fact of the matter is Postle didn’t cheat and BS articles like this do nothing but fan the flame even more of media and social media injustice.
For a site that calls themselves “legal gambling and the law” you don’t know shit about what’s happened here regarding the law. Postle didn’t lose the Anti-Slapp Motion. He dropped the case which means he has the right to refile again.
Bottom line, it’s not over. Postle is coming for Witteles et al!!!
-Jackass Jay