Celebrities love poker. Unfortunately, it is costing some more than they anticipated.
It wasn’t their playing; it was who they were playing with. The celebs had started playing high-stakes underground poker with hedge fund operator Bradley Ruderman. The “hedge fund” phrase should throw up a red flag to anyone who’s been following the news the last few years.
Like others, Ruderman was bilking investors out of their hard earned bucks. He was arrested by the FBI in 2009 for running a Ponzi scheme, which cost his investors about $44 million. Why did people invest with Ruderman? He was promising as much as a 60% return from companies such as Apple, Inc. and Wal-Mart. Remember people, if it sounds too good to be true…
Anyhow, Ruderman was living the high life on his investors’ money, including the celebrity poker games. How high were these stakes? In some cases, it was a $100,000 buy-in for no-limit Texas Hold’em games.
Once the FBI found out about these “friendly” little poker games, it wanted the monies back to repay the investors.
Of course, the celebrities had no idea Ruderman was a bad dude. Now, he is a bad dude spending 10 years in a federal prison after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of investment advisor fraud, and willful failure to file taxes (apparently on his ill-gotten money).
Actor Toby Maquire admitted that he took about $311,000 off Ruderman. But, he also said he lost $168,500 to Ruderman during poker games. Today, Maquire agreed to pay back $80,000.
So far, there have been 22 people sued for the ill-gotten poker winnings, which totaled more than $1.7 million. So far, 14 of the sued players, including Maguire, have offered a settlement. But, most deny any wrongdoings with the games.
Others sued include actor-director Nick Cassavetes, billionaire Alec Gores (who agreed to pay back $49,908 of the $445,500 he won), and “Welcome Back, Kotter” actor Gabe Kaplan (who agreed to pay back $36,900 of the $63,000 he won).