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Sacramento Casino Stones Gambling Hall Still Employing Alleged Poker Live Stream Cheating Accomplice

Mike Postle Says Upcoming Documentary Will Show His Innocence

by Steve Schult  |  Published: Sep 15, 2020

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Following a settlement, the alleged accomplice in the lawsuit accusing Mike Postle of cheating a low-stakes, live-streamed poker game at Stones Gambling Hall has been rehired by the Sacramento-area casino, according to a post on Twitter. If it weren’t for the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Stones Gambling Hall Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis might not have missed a paycheck.

Along with running the tournaments at Stones, Kuraitis was also in charge of the Stones Live Poker livestream, and was believed by many high-profile figures in the poker world to be the accomplice feeding hole card information to Postle.

The lawsuit is basically over at this point as 62 of the 88 plaintiffs in the case accepted a settlement.

Mac VerStandig, counsel for the plaintiffs, released a statement saying that there was no evidence supporting the claims that Kuraitis and Postle cheated, which was likely required as part of the settlement deal.

After nearly a year of silence, Kuraitis released a statement of his own Tuesday morning on Twitter, reasserting his innocence, attacking those that accused him, and thanking those that supported him in the legal battle that ensued.

“Turns out this ‘community’ did not care about right or wrong, fairness, or a crucial review of the actual facts,” wrote Kuraitis in a four-page statement. “It was a rush to judgment with the Twitter mob interested in saying outrageous things and jumping to unwarranted conclusions, all in an effort to get followers, clicks, and likes.”

Near the end of his essay, he thanks “Rudy Robledo, Kirk Rexford, and the countless local Sacramento poker players” for circulating a petition for Stones to rehire him.

But if it wasn’t for coronavirus, Kuraitis might not have ever been let go in the first place. A Human Resources representative at Stones confirmed to Card Player that Kuraitis was originally hired by the company in July 2013 and did not miss a paycheck until nearly the entire staff was furloughed in March, when the nation’s brick-and-mortar casino market was shut down. The accusations against Kuraitis originally surfaced in early October of 2019.

In the statement, Kuraitis railed against several mainstream poker media outlets for ignoring the petition in their coverage along with any supposed evidence of innocence. When asked about the petition, however, Kuraitis did not provide any links or documents that could prove its existence, nor did he say how many people signed it.

“The names of the people who circulated the petition are in my letter,” Kuraitis vaguely responded.

Kuraitis declined to address any questions regarding the status of his employment with Stones and what work he did for the casino in the interim. Despite responding to many critics on Twitter, Kuraitis ignored direct questions asking him if Postle was indeed guilty, as most of the poker world suspects.

The statement does praise one media outlet, RounderLife, which has run a slew of pro-Postle pieces in the last year and has been linked to Postle himself. In one of the early court filings surrounding the case, Postle’s email address was listed as “roundermagpro.” He was also named as part of the publication’s marketing and promotions department on the masthead of the magazine.

Postle also broke his silence on Tuesday, telling the Sacramento Bee that he is participating in a documentary to tell his side of the story that “won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world.”

 
 
Tags: Mike Postle,   Justin Kuraitis,   Stones Gambling Hall,   Poker,   Poker Cheating
 
 
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