LEDERER: HAS HE COME TO HIS SENSES TOO LATE?

Poker

By Wendeen H. Eolis

Poker Player Newspaper

October 1, 2012

Until Howard Lederer, former president and member of the Board of Directors of Full Tilt Poker (FTP) took interviews at Pokernews.com and twoplustwo.com, earlier this month, and then backed out of a third one planned with poker writer diamond flush, he avoided penetrating scrutiny by the media.

Woe is him! After hours upon hours of interviews,  Lederer has provided a heyday for poker media and possibly expanded peril for himself in his dealings with the Government, say several gaming lawyers.

Reporters are now more able than ever to dissect his every word and make mincemeat of his various contradictions, omissions, and vague recollections in these interviews.  And Lederer’s claim of approval by FTP counsel of each of the public statements produced by Full Tilt after April 7th, 21st and/or later,  has various lawyers  around the country raising their eyebrows and predicting that this statement will come back to haunt him.

Lederer has said that April 21, 2011 was the worst day of his life—he says he learned the true disastrous condition of the company, that day. Several lawyers who previously suggested he was well out of the woods with the DOJ,—except for money troubles, have revised their positions, suggesting that the DOJ will likely take as hard a look at his interviews as will his most angry critics in the poker world.

PPN will peel the onion with a commitment to fairness and accuracy, relying in large measure on Lederer’s own assertions. Did Lederer finally realize that no interviews might have been a better decision than the ones he served up,and that at this point further interviews could become a bigger nightmare?