Update: Todd Witteles, one of the defendants in Mike Postle’s lawsuit, tweeted that Steven Lowe’s motion was granted on January 14, meaning that Postle currently has no attorney for his ongoing legal battle.
Client/attorney communication has “ceased”
The attorney for poker player Mike Postle has filed a motion to be relieved of his duties as legal counsel. The motion, filed in Sacramento Superior Court last Tuesday by Steven Lowe of Lowe & Associates, is specific to Postle’s libel case against a dozen people and media outlets in conjunction with the allegations that he cheated at poker.
client has failed to comply with the written agreement between the firm and the client”
In the motion, posted on Twitter last Wednesday by Mac VerStandig, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the cheating case, Lowe gave few details, simply saying: “Client has failed to comply with the written agreement between the firm and the client, and communication has otherwise ceased between client and attorney.”
Postle has until January 14 to respond to the motion if he wants to attempt to get the court to force Lowe to stay on as his attorney. Even if he does try it, however, the court is very unlikely to rule in his favor. Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi will hand down a decision if Postle does not act, almost certainly allowing Lowe to take his leave from the case.
Witteles hitting back at Postle’s lawsuit
Postle filed a $330m lawsuit this fall against poker personalities like Daniel Negreanu, Joey Ingram, and Haralabos Voulgaris, as well as media outlets such as ESPN and PokerNews, for their public commentary on his alleged cheating. Among other things, he claimed that their analysis and opinions damaged his reputation and caused him emotional damage.
Todd Witteles, poker player and owner of the website PokerFraudAlert.com and a defendant in the lawsuit, announced late last week that he has filed an anti-SLAPP motion against Mike Postle.
In the motion, Witteles says that the purpose of Postle’s lawsuit is “primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances.”
The hearing on Witteles’s counter-suit is scheduled for February 10, 2021.
Postle ran hotter than the sun
The Mike Postle saga goes back to September 2019, when Veronica Brill, one of the people Postle is suing, said she suspected someone of cheating in the Stones Live streamed cash games from Stones Gambling Hall in California. Members of the poker community studied the stream recordings and found that Postle had profited about $130,000 in just 34 sessions of $1/$3 and $5/$5 No-Limit Hold’em.
Often, his lines seemed nonsensical, but he still ended up winning.
Postle seemingly made every perfect decision, no matter what cards he had. Often, his lines seemed nonsensical, but he still ended up winning. Viewers also believed that, based on a bulge in his baseball cap and his frequent gaze into his lap, that Postle may have had some device feeding him live card RFID data.
88 plaintiffs filed a class-action suit against Postle, Stones Gambling Hall, and livestream production manager Justin Kuraitis for cheating. The courts eventually dismissed the case because plaintiffs cannot use the legal system to recover gambling losses under California law. In September of this year, Stones agreed to a settlement with 61 of the plaintiffs for a “nominal” amount of money. Mac VerStandig issued a statement saying neither Stones nor Kuraitis cheated any poker players.