Marle Cordeiro Sues Postle in Nevada Court
The saga of the Mike Postle cheating allegations became a little more complicated a few days ago when poker player Marle Cordeiro filed a lawsuit against Michael Postle in the US District Court for the District of Nevada.
This is the second lawsuit filed against Postle and also stems from allegations that he cheated in cash poker games at Stones Gambling Hall while playing on the “Stones Live” livestream from the California card room.
The first lawsuit, also filed by Mac VerStandig of the VerStandig Law Firm, started with 25 plaintiffs headed up by Veronica Brill, the poker player who first brought the cheating allegations to Stones and then to the public. That filing offered nine causes of action and three defendants – Postle, Stones, and Stones employee Justin Kuraitis. Recently, VerStandig filed an amended complaint with nearly 90 plaintiffs and 11 causes of action.
Cordeiro’s lawsuit is similar in some ways but very unique in others.
One-on-One Lawsuit
The first unique aspect of Cordeiro’s lawsuit is that she is the sole plaintiff and Postle is the only defendant. Cordeiro chose to leave Stones and Kuraitis out of the mix.
In addition, she filed her case in Nevada, not in California as the other lawsuit. Since Cordeiro is a resident of Nevada, she wants the case tried there. The document also cites several other reasons for filing in Nevada, one being that the case concerns an “intentional tort” directed at Cordeiro while she was in Nevada.
The cases are similar in that both accuse Postle of cheating and both demand a trial by jury.
She also uses several of the same causes of action as in the first case but provides a bit of a different perspective about what she alleges happened at Stones Gambling Hall.
And in a “notice of related case,” Cordeiro admits that her case is similar to the other case against Postle but consolidation of the two lawsuits would not be “feasible, much less pragmatic.”
Oh wow https://t.co/FeYjPwSFF8
— Marle Spragg (@MarleSpragg) April 6, 2020
Primary General Allegations
Cordeiro starts with a story of Stones and the “Stones Live” games livestreamed on the internet. And she notes that Mike Postle recorded net winnings in more than 94% of the “Stones Live” games in which he played from July 18, 2018 onward.
This winning play shows Postle with an average profit of more than 60 big blinds per hour. This is compared to an average goal of winning five per hour and 10 being exceptional.
“A detailed review of Mr. Postle’s play reveals not only statistics unfathomable in the world of professional poker but, too, situation-specific decision making in which almost every so-called ‘guess’ to be made by Mr. Postle is done in a manner that optimally benefits his monetary interest.”
Cordeiro also notes that Postle rarely played in cash games not streamed live from Stones and stopped playing when the broadcast ended.
She went on to say that Postle engaged in a “pattern and practice of using one or more wire communication mechanisms to defraud his opponents by gaining knowledge of their hole cards during the play of poker hands.” This took place with the help of “one or more confederates,” who will likely be named after the discovery process.
Further than the other lawsuit, Cordeiro specifies that Postle cheated using a cell phone between his legs that showed the hole cards of his opponents. She does not, however, know the type of software he used, only that it was connected in some way to the RFID table, which includes cameras that visually record every player’s hole cards.
Cordeiro Lured to Play Postle
Another general allegation in the filing is that Cordeiro was invited to play in the “Stones Live” game in September 2019. She did make that trip to play in the $10/$25/$50 cash game. She details one specific hand in which Postle cheated and cost Cordeiro a profit of several thousand dollars.
“This was not the only hand Ms. Cordeiro and the defendant both played that evening; it is, however, the one most demonstrably evidencing the defendant’s utilization of illegal cheating methods to swindle Ms. Cordeiro.”
Counts or Causes of Action
The document goes into detail about each cause of action, as summarized here:
–Count 1. Violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act via Section 1962(c) of Title 18 of US Code: using wire transmissions to defraud Cordeiro in games from July 2018 through September 2019 at Stones (68 occasions); constituting a pattern of racketeering activity
–Count 2. Fraud: falsely claiming to be an honest participant in poker games, wherein Cordeiro spent money to play and to which she traveled
–Count 3. Negligent misrepresentation: misrepresenting the Stones games to be honest, games to which Cordeiro traveled to play
–Count 4. Negligence per se: devising a scheme or artifice to defraud by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, using wire communications for the purpose of executing a scheme
–Count 5. Negligence per se: violating Section 337x of the California Penal Code making it “unlawful to cheat at any gambling game in a gambling establishment,” causing Cordeiro to lose the opportunity to earn monies through an honest game of poker
Judgments Sought
Finally, Cordeiro seeks the following judgments in her favor and against Postle in the form of:
–Count 1. An amount equal to 3x damages suffered, attorney fees and suit costs, other just and proper relief
–Count 2. An amount equal to damages suffered, punitive damages of $250,000.00, other just and proper relief
–Counts 3-5. An amount equal to damages suffered, other just and proper relief
With that, Postle will be served, and the court will await a response.
.@MarleCordeiro alleges that another player used hidden devices to cheat her out of thousands of dollars in a game broadcast from a California casino https://t.co/qY9kCLrRdh
— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) April 7, 2020
