Negreanu, Juanda, Former Employee Speak About the Lederer Files

PokerNews.com has now released 6 of the 7 videos which they have titled The Lederer Files, giving us a near complete look of the 3.5 hour cut interview. So far the reaction across poker forums and from top pros has been mainly negative. If you haven’t seen the interviews yet, you can watch them all here.

What are the pros saying? Most have been keeping quiet, including those that Lederer has thrown under the bus such as Phil Ivey, Phil Gordon, and Erick Lindgren. However, Daniel Negreanu, who is never shy of speaking his mind, along with John Juanda have been speaking out via twitter, against Lederer:

Daniel Negreanu (via twitter)

One hour into the Lederer interview, so far zero apologies and zero admittance of any wrong doing on his part. Exactly what I expected.

Lederer Files: to those thinking he comes off arrogant and condescending in the interview, that isn’t new, that’s how he’s always talked.

Odd that Howard is now willing to throw Ray under the bus when it was HE and Chris who protected Ray from being fired the whole time.

Lederer files: seems like there was NEVER even the thought of how to handle a crisis like the DOJ. They got shut down and had NO plan at all

Lederer Files: this part is gross to me- they KNEW there were no funds but allowed players all over the world to keep depositing #noexcuse

Lederer Files Ep 4: I know personally for an absolute fact that he is lying in this segment.This guy takes no blame for anything it’s absurd

Lederer Files: committing a crime (allowing ROW deposits claiming its safe) in order to MAYBE increase chance of cleaning up mess=NOT OK.

Lederer Files: Howard finds it “outrageous”that Ivey didn’t want to endorse a company involved in criminal activity? Now THAT is outrageous

As expected Howard is using this interview to throw Ray, the shareholders, and Ivey under the bus while claiming he was the good guy. HA!

John Juanda (via twitter)

I think @pokernews did good job asking so many tough questions, but HL got away from most by simply saying I DON’T KNOW #LedererFiles

For the record, Howard Lederer was wrong when he said I was 2nd largest shareholder of FTP! Maybe he REALLY didn’t know!!??? #LedererFiles

As Ray Bitar’s boss, Howard Lederer should’ve accepted more blames instead of trying to shift blames to everyone else. #LedererFiles

I owe FTP $256K, was offered to settle for 80% but declined when I found out Ray, w/boards’ approval,was still taking home 200K+/mo post BF

Instead I offered to pay 100% as soon as I could be certain it’d go toward paying players NOT management salary&lawyers fees #LedererFiles

Howard didn’t mention in his interview that FTP management also stole 5.4M from my best friend@Erik_Seidel #LedererFiles

What would u do in my shoes? Send check to same ppl who just stole from ur buddy?Or wait+hope to pay to the right parties?#LedererFiles

Former Employee Speaks

Also interesting was a former employee took to reddit to do an AMA, which he titled: “The Lederer Files: 30% Truth, 30% Plausible Deniability, 30% Lies, and 10% Fucking Bullshit.”

In the post, the unnamed former employee states:

I worked for FTP at a high level and watching these Howard videos has moved me from rage to sadness to sympathy to fucking god damn rage again.

Did Howard and company empower Ray and turn a blind eye to what was happening, most definitely.

They also released an internal document as proof, which is a lot to go through, but can be found here.

We will keep you updated as more pros come forward to share their thoughts on the Lederer Files.