Postle-Associated PR Firm Launches Smear Campaign
This is getting out of hand.
Mike Postle is now linked to a PR firm of a woman who assisted him in his legal matters. Despite the woman’s continued attempts to distance herself from a business relationship with Postle, her PR firm is now the owner of a fresh new website with Postle’s name in it that pertains to his court cases.
Oh, the tangled webs they weave.
Who is Mike Postle?
Many people in poker associate his name with an alleged cheating scandal at Stones Gambling Hall in California. The initial allegations and investigations in 2019 led to years of lawsuits and legal messes, accusations and denials. I posted a Postle scandal timeline here to bring some clarity to the sordid tale through March 2021.
The part of the scandal that is most pertinent to the latest developments involves the case that Postle filed in 2020 against almost everyone and every entity he felt wronged him in the past several years. He filed the lawsuit against Veronica Brill, Todd Witteles, Daniel Negreanu, ESPN, PokerNews, etc., though he dropped it on April 1, 2021, as he was unable to find an attorney to represent him.
Meanwhile, though, two of the defendants – Brill and Witteles – filed anti-SLAPP motions, claiming First Amendment freedoms regarding their public comments about Postle. When Postle dropped his lawsuit, Brill and Witteles automatically won their anti-SLAPP motions. This allowed them to file motions for their legal fees, and the court did order Postle to pay some legal fees for both of them. Postle owed a total of $54,727 to the pair of defendants.
Attorneys for Brill and Witteles knew that Postle was unlikely to make any attempts to pay the fees, so they filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Postle. As it turned out, Postle already seemed to be exploring bankruptcy as he owed more than $62K for credit card-related debts and more than $18K for a vehicle, in addition to the $55K for legal fees.
A hearing is set for October 13 regarding the involuntary bankruptcy case against Postle.
Finding a Friend
Throughout the mess, Postle came across someone to stand up for him. As he claimed that the poker community was lashing out at him via threats to him and his family, someone entered the picture to handle the bullying that reportedly plagued Postle.
Alexandrea Merrell’s name first appeared as a part of a legal filing in March 2021, at which point he was telling the court why he couldn’t get a lawyer. This was before he dropped his lawsuit. One document in that filing was signed by HONR Network Director of Public Relations and Policy Alexandrea Merrell. She claimed that “multiple third parties” contacted HONR Network to help Postle handle the threats he claimed to have received. “Once we reviewed the level of rights violating content, privacy violations, actionable death threats, defamation, extortion attempts, etc., we contacted Mr. Postle to offer assistance,” she told me at that time.
To be clear, the HONR Network is a nonprofit organization founded by a parent of the youngest Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting victim. Lenny Pozner started it to help people victimized as he had been by Alex Jones, a well-known conspiracy theorist who perpetrated the myth that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened. Pozner wanted to help others who faced online attacks and harassment.
Merrell claimed that HONR became involved with Postle due to the organization’s “network of hundreds of volunteers across the country who report distressing content when they find it.” The group then “conducted research including documenting hundreds of hours of video, audio, social media posts, articles, etc.” that warranted helping him with any legal proceedings Postle might undertake as a response to his alleged harassment. Merrell said that HONR offered Postle help gathering information regarding defamation and threats against him, writing to the court on his behalf, and helping him secure an attorney.
More Than Meets the Eye
Through a series of emails, Merrell eventually admitted the connection between her organization and Postle. “Volunteers of the HONR Network started investigating the case because of Mr. Randazza’s connection.”
Marc Randazza was the attorney who represented Alex Jones in the aforementioned legal matters. And Marc Randazza was Veronica Brill’s attorney in the Postle case.
And according to Randazza, Merrell’s involvement in Postle’s case went beyond simply writing a letter to the court on his behalf. He said that she acted as a representative of Postle himself in phone calls that included Postle and Randazza. She asked the judge for filing extensions for Postle.
In June, I wrote about Postle’s 331-page brief to the court, in which he tried to disparage Randazza’s client. I noted that part of the document appeared to be written by Postle – misspelling the word “supplemental,” for example – while other parts appeared to have been written by someone else. The latter accused Randazza of “perverting the course of justice” and his fees as a “weighty recitation of his accomplishments and recognitions.” There were two distinct writing styles in the document.
Merrell told me that she didn’t “associate” herself with Postle. And it was HONR that worked with him. And regarding Randazza, she wrote to me in a midnight Twitter direct message, “I have NEVER ‘worked to discredit’ Mr Randazza, that is NOT a part of my job.”
In one of Postle’s most recent list of grievances (in the form of a motion in the involuntary bankruptcy case), he focused heavily on a phone call involving Merrell, Randazza, and Postle in which Randazza reportedly used harsh language against Merrell.
Stay With Me; It Starts to Make Sense
Witteles came across a website recently, one called MikePostlePoker-dot-com. Through a little investigating, he found that most of the site’s contact information was “redacted for privacy.” Information not redacted, however, showed that Orndee Inc based in New York registered the Postle website. And Orndee registered the domain on May 14.
Public information reveals that Alexandrea Merrell is the founder and director of Orndee PR based in New York City. She founded the firm in 2009. Per the PR company’s website:
“Orndee PR is a crisis management and strategic communications firm specializing in assisting civilians involved in high-profile incidents and celebrities and brands navigate attention. We help clients control the controversies, create the narrative, engage the audience, and ultimately tell their story.”
The website that Merrell’s firm created for Postle is simple and factually incorrect. The home page attempts to disparage Randazza and Brill while claiming that a court ruling vindicated Postle (it did not) and that the anti-SLAPP motion was rejected (it was not) when Postle dropped his case. Another page is dedicated to an ugly situation with his ex-wife and child. And the third and final page of the site referred to Witteles’ anti-SLAPP motion being rejected (it was not) and dismissed (it was not).
Is Merrell doing pro-bono work for Postle out of the goodness of her heart? Did Postle hire her firm to represent him? If the latter is the case, this will probably not go over well with the bankruptcy judge who is supposed to believe that Postle is broke.
Merrell’s continued association with Postle couldn’t be any part of a vendetta against Randazza, though, because she insisted to me that she has no vendetta and has “NEVER” worked to discredit him.
Watch out for this web. It appears to be as creepy as a web could be.
Disclaimer: This author is not a lawyer and has virtually zero qualifications to analyze legal documents or arguments. Nevertheless, she persists.
