Veronica Brill is seeking a temporary restraining order against Mike Postle in a continuing attempt to seize Postle's recent winnings from a recent poker tournament at Mississippi's Beau Rivage casino to satisfy a court-ordered debt to Brill that Postle has left unpaid for more than 18 months.
Attorneys for Brill filed the motion for a TRO yesterday in the same California Superior Court where Postle was ordered in 2021 to pay legal fees incurred by Brill and Todd Witteles after Postle's $300 million defamation lawsuit against them and others was summarily dismissed. The court-ordered judgment has nothing to do with whether Postle actually cheated during live-streamed games in California, as widely accused, but was instead about the frivolous nature of his lawsuit. Postle, as declared in yesterday's filing, has made no effort to pay those court-ordered legal fees, leaving attorneys scrambling in an attempt to legally garnish Postle's Mississippi winnings in an attempt that ultimately proved unsuccessful.
Alternate legal means of pursuing debtors exist, however, and the motion for the TRO seeks to "restrain and enjoin" Postle from disbursing any of his poker winnings from the Beau Rivage event. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for today, and the motion also declares that Postle, a California resident, was served notice of the hearing yesterday via his last known email.
"This Application is made on the grounds that Michael Postle recently participated in a poker game at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino under a pseudonym and while disguising his identity for the purpose of frustrating his judgment creditors," the filing declares, "and during this game won an amount that would satisfy most, if not all, of the judgment in Brill's favor. He continues to play in professional poker games, using aliases and disguises in an effort, in conduct that amounts to fraudulent transfers made to frustrate collections efforts. Emergency injunctive relief is necessary to ensure that Postle does not dispose of these assets to further frustrate attempts to collect on the judgment against him, and to prevent him from disposing of future poker winnings without satisfying the judgment."
Motion accuses Postle of evading discovery of assets
Some of the curious circumstances of Postle being discovered playing in the Beau Rivage's Million Dollar Heater main event are included in the TRO filing. Postle played at least some of the time while hooded and masked, in contrast to his traditional baseball cap, and he also wore glasses and, possibly, a prosthetic nose.
While Postle registered the event under his own name, the Beau Rivage reported him in its official chip counts under the munged moniker "Mike Lawrence", with no listed place of residence. This is presented as part of the filing's legal argument claiming Postle has committed fraudulent behavior:
"Postle has made no effort to pay the judgment entered against him. His recent actions have shown that, not only does he lack any intent to pay what he owes Brill, but he is taking deliberate efforts to evade discovery of his assets and frustrate his judgment creditors. He continues to play Poker professionally and make significant money from it. But when he attends poker games under a pseudonym, using a disguise, and deliberately refusing to disclose his place of residence, it is apparent that he is obtaining his poker winnings secretly, at which point he is likely to dispose of them in equally underhanded ways. He should not be permitted to dispose of his winnings as he sees fit, while keeping the existence of these winnings a secret from his creditors.
"Accordingly, the Court should enjoin Postle from disposing of his winnings from the recent Million Dollar Heater tournament at the Beau Rivage, other than to satisfy Brill's judgment against him. Under the UVTA, Civil Code § 3439, fraudulent transfers are prohibited, and given Postle's fraudulent enrollment in the poker tournament, his collection of the funds from the tournament are themselves fraudulent. At this point, Postle is making no efforts to pay his debt, and in fact was aware that Brill was making collection efforts in Mississippi to garnish the poker winnings. However, given the fact that he was there under a false name and in disguise, he managed to hide his participation just long enough to take his winnings and flee. Postle and any who assisted him in concealing monies meant to satisfy a judgment are also liable for fraudulent transfers."
Whether or not the Beau Rivage itself has exposed itself to any financial liability in the ongoing Postle saga remains to be determined, and is also contingent upon whether the owed legal fees can be seized by Brill via more direct means. How Postle appeared in the Beau's official chip counts as "Mike Lawrence" (his first and middle names) also remains a curiosity, though only two possibilities appear to exist, both involving willingness to disguise an identity by someone within the Beau Rivage's poker operations. Either Postle asked a Beau staffer to alter his name in the published counts, or said staffer did so on his own to seemingly hide Postle's presence in the event and at its final table.
That Postle and the Beau Rivage both knew of the Mississippi-based garnishment attempt on Brill's behalf before Postle was paid out is also in apparent evidence as asserted. Postle's friend Khou Fang posted on Twitter that Postle was shown paperwork by a Beau Rivage official about the ongoing garnishment effort prior to being paid out, during a short period on Tuesday when Postle's winnings were reportedly temporarily frozen by the casino:
Separately, Beau Rivage corporate parent MGM Resorts International did not respond to a request for comment about the circumstances regarding Postle being listed as "Mike Lawrence" or his being paid out following his elimination from the tournament.
Featured image source: Haley Hintze
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