Court Rules in Favor of Online Poker in $30+ Million Seizure Case

A ruling has finally been handed down in the highly-publicized (and equally highly-contentious) courtroom drama regarding the almost $40 million in online poker winnings seized several weeks ago, primarily from the accounts of Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker members. And thankfully, it was a favorable ruling for the online poker community.

Today, Judge Laura Swain ruled in favor of Costigan Media’s request to have all the warrants and affidavits from that seizure unsealed. The honorable judge explained in her ruling that not enough evidence was given to keep those documents sealed. The only things she did allow to remain concealed were certain items like the names of the individual account-holders.

Furthermore Judge Swain ordered that with 120 days the Government (namely the FBI) file a full report with the Court regarding the status of all activities relevant to the investigation, as well as directing them to release any relevant evidence within 7 calendar days of receiving that evidence.

Part of the ruling was very likely influenced by the Southern District of New York’s recent indictment of Douglas Rennick for allegedly creating bank accounts under false pretenses. The official charges are “bank fraud”, “illegal gambling”, and “money laundering”. Gambling911 (whose parent company is Costigan Media) says that now that Rennick has been indicted, there is no longer any reasonable cause to keep those documents sealed.

This will no doubt shed some sorely lacking light on this whole debacle and hopefully make it inordinately easier to get those players their rightfully-earned money back.