This is a milestone. For the first time since October 2019, there is no ongoing litigation over the cheating allegations against Mike Postle. With her judgment on Wednesday, Judge Shama Mesiwala closed the book on Postlegate when she awarded $27,745 in court costs to Veronica Brill. Postle will have to settle that debt, and the similar debt owed to Todd Wittles, out of his own pocket. It seems unlikely that GoFundMe will come to his rescue as it did to Brill's.
The court had already deemed Postle's suit to be frivolous at a previous hearing. The court was just there to tidy up the issue of exactly how much Postle owes Brill for her troubles.
As such, Wednesday's hearing served as an epilog to the greater Postle saga.
In memoriam
That the whole sordid business began and ended with Brill feels narratively sound.
In 2019, it was Brill who blew the whistle against Mike Postle, Justin Kuriatis, and Stones Gambling Hall regarding suspected cheating in a series of live-streamed poker games. Now it will be Brill who receives the final check in the mail, postmarked from wherever Mike Postle's mother lives.
Kuriatis and Stones reached a settlement with some of the plaintiffs in the case. Meanwhile Postle was dismissed from the case completely. The reason for his dismissal being a 19th-Century state law that prevents gamblers from seeking recourse in cheating cases.
After that, Postle filed a suit against his accusers. However, he dropped the suit when Brill and Wittles filed anti-SLAPPs against him.
If Postle wants vindication now, it will have to be through the David Broome documentary. That is assuming it ever gets greenlit. Even then it will have to navigate the rocky road through to production. According to Postle's ex-wife, the documentary is likely to be highly favorable to Postle. She stated in an interview with Brill that Postle's ex-business partner at Rounder Life Magazine pulled the strings that put the doc in motion.
Postle will no doubt bob up again in the news cycle, but it seems like the wheels of justice are finally done with him. It's not the definitive closure that most of us hoped for. But it is at least something.
"I'm trying to sleep and this mosquito will never die," Brill wrote about Postle's rejected brief. Postle's last minute filing, on June 9, was so poorly constructed that the court was unable to accept it into the record. The mosquito is silent now.
It's time to finally close the gate on Postle.
Featured image source: Flickr by Marco Verch
