david lebold

@StevenBridges Can you get a Texas lawyer on the podcast who can speak to the actual legality of poker rooms in Texas!

Most people are telling me that poker rooms in Texas are using a legal loophole to be able to operate. Those who are angry that The Lodge has been raided/can't operate, I'm wondering whether or not you think that: - The Lodge operates LEGALLY, so the raid is unjustified. - The Lodge operates ILLEGALLY, but the law is BS/unfair. - The legal status is less relevant, they're being selectively targeted unfairly. Obviously you may think two of these things, but I'm interested in what the biggest factor is.

@MamaLama43 Reform MSP!

What a strange state to live in. Massachusetts—where someone can point a gun at a police officer and be found not guilty, where defense lawyers can take preposterous claims to the FBI and be taken seriously, and where witnesses are harassed and abused without consequence. #SendHelp

@ChadAHolloway He said he was thinking about paying the players who are stuck holding his bag. Any word on when or if that will happen?

What's the real situation regarding the raid at The Lodge? It may not be about the legality of poker in Texas, nor involve alcohol. It may also explain why no other clubs have been impacted. I have a theory -- it involves FinCEN & the Bank Secrecy Act -- that I'll highlight in the 🧵 below. I also talk about it in tomorrow's episode of the PokerNews Podcast. Before I do, I want to clarify that it's just speculation, and that Doug has announced he'll be relasing a video soon, so I'm sure we'll learn more details then. Here's a possible explanation as to what's going on👇

@sortatargetdog @amazon He went to jail because he contacted his victim who he allegedly s.a.

Bro, I went to jail. 60 days! No less, no more. They didnt have this @amazon luxury in jail. Yes, hes still over explaining his Amazon grift as recent as this morning, he might be overthinking it atp 😂

@ltanoury He's not much a journalist Aidan reminds me if Jessica Machado.

This fcking guy. Against my better judgement I tuned into his bootleg program. Against he’s already crying like a baby about himself. He’s done zero vetting of whether they got the info elsewhere. But even if they got it from him, he literally reports on their news every single night. Last show he read every text from Kelsey and Justin straight from @NBC10Boston website. It’s called fair use. But only when he does it. He didn’t FOIL the texts. He didn’t do the legwork. He just waited two hours into his show to do a cursory rundown of their reporting on Kelsey’s case. First two hours was again devoted to his self important and self serving rants, despite titling the show Kelsey case. Gtfoh you little moron. You’re lazy. You can’t focus. You were a spoiled kid from the suburbs that calls cops and projects. Every single thing you carry about is YOU. It’s what YOU do. Go seek help. It’s time for a break buddy.

@alexduvallin Are you a lawyer?

Where’d Tom Dwan go???

@DoctorTurtleboy @auntiedebbb Everyone of you, on both sides of FKR, never received a text message you didn't hope you could someday monetize or embararass a friend.

@auntiedebbb Don’t worry, there will be a 3 paragraph explanation for why she only said this about Nan because she was under my spell or someone lied to her. It’s everyone else’s fault

Oh hey mere 👋🏼 You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about regarding the phone call with Naniel. I told her I appreciated the apology but the album was still gonna come out - because I worked hard on it! “Now keep in mind that I’m an artist, & I’m sensitive about my shit” -Erykah badu Also, acting righteous all of a sudden just to go against me? *classic mere*

@aburkhartlaw @IanRunkle What are your thoughts on the woman officer he said went gown on his wife? Would that be something that is not legal?

@IanRunkle I am dumbfounded that this has gone to trial.

Afroman trial thoughts: Are they seriously arguing "Look, we can't count?" ...they are. So much of this trial is "We shouldn't be cops."

@LuukeJohnston @DougPolkVids And he went to town hall meetings to expand into other Texas communities.

I support the expansion of poker in every way. But Texas was always living on borrowed time. @DougPolkVids probably helped bring about his own demise with the flaunting of alcohol filled nosebleed cash games on YouTube and partnering with the WPT. He made the Lodge a target.

@JohnnieVibes Johnnie vibes is completely biased.

This is what most people suspected. Texas claims to be business friendly, but in actuality it's lobby friendly and as corrupt as big government states like California. Really unfortunate for all involved, who by every measure, appeared to be running a clean business.

@JohnnieVibes A clean buusness that may violate state laws. They could open a club in a state that it is legal in.

@ChadAHolloway Grey areas are not really legal until a judge rules one way or the other. The Texas government spent years investigating this which is weird if it is a legal gambling club.

I have read Search and Seizure Warrant against The Lodge in full, and it does appear to be a witch hunt. Essentially, they're deeming poker in TX illegal and therefore classifying what we'd consider normal banking transactions as money laundering because it's proceeds from what they say is illegal gambling. All the undercover operations outlined in the affidavit describe a normally functioning, well-run poker room. To me, nothing in it suggests what we in the poker world would consider scandalous/nefarious, but rather authorities simply taking a stance on the grey area/loophole that they consider illegal. If the TABC ultimately prevails that poker at The Lodge constitutes illegal gambling, it’ll shut down every room in TX. More on @PokerNews here 👇 pokernews.com/news/2026/03/t…

@JulieCar94 Wiffen was just trying to salvage the cellubrite brand. Whiffed on the payment he is an idiot to not charge the commonwealth fir his time.

According to a conversation Aidan Kearney had with Dave Cullinane, Rick "McNasty" Green was paid $50,000 by the defense. Kearney also claimed Green was hired due to his work for Jackson on the Spacey case. In that case, the mother of the victim had deleted some messages on his phone and the case was subsequently dropped. For the record, and we have confirmed this with several sources, Ian Whiffin wasn't paid ONE DIME for his work on the Read case.

@DixieNormu95224 She never dropped Colin off at 34. I think she picked Colin up because her and Colin are fuck buddies. What is on the mind of a 17 year old drunk male, sex. They are not related.

John O’Keefe deserves the truth. Let’s walk through Allie McCabe’s testimony for a minute, because the timeline starts to look like a game of Canton Clue once you line it up. Allie testified that when Colin texted her asking for a ride, she knew exactly where she was at another friend’s house. According to testimony that night she Dropped Colin at 34 Fairview sometime between 10:30–11:00, Dropped off Avery at her house, Dropped off Danielle at her house, Then went to another friend’s house….So far, incredibly specific. But here’s where things suddenly get foggy. When asked how she later got from that friend’s house back to 34 Fairview, she suddenly can’t remember the route she took. Not a general direction. Not a street. Nothing. Just “I don’t remember.” Then comes the parking situation. When asked where she parked at 34 Fairview she said “I believe in the driveway, on the left side… I don’t know, I just believe that.” Now let’s pause there, by that point we already know Two Albert vehicles were already in that driveway, Jen McCabe would be arriving minutes later, Jen would later text John O’Keefe to pull behind her. Which raises a pretty basic physics question: How many cars exactly were supposed to fit in that driveway IN A ROW? At this point the Fairview driveway is starting to look like Logan Airport long-term parking. And then there’s the door situation. Coco testified she bumped into Colin at the FRONT door as he was leaving because his ride was there. But Colin says he left through the SIDE door. So now we’re supposed to believe that Colin saw Brian Sr. at the side door Coco saw Colin at the front door, Allie was parked in the driveway, Higgins was also in the driveway area…and somehow none of these people clearly see each other. That’s not a conspiracy theory.That’s just why testimony needs to be vetted carefully. Because when timelines, parking locations, doors, and basic logistics stop lining up, the only responsible thing to do is dig deeper. And the reason is simple: John O’Keefe deserves the truth.

@LynnCross_TX @JulieCar94 They tried to indict karen and the grand jury rejected the commonwealth attempt They can't search her phones because there us no evidence karen did anything wrong. It has been years and they still have no evidence. Cosgrove is thinking about appealing

@JulieCar94 IDK if you've covered this, Im not in the details as you are but I dont understand why CW hasnt seized the phns @ issue in civil case & obtain warrants to extract contents for WI indictment/ charges on the bog witch

"I will have all their asses when this is all over" ~ Karen Read to Aidan Kearney in a conversation about the witnesses. Conspiracy to commit witness intimidation or just a poor "girl" in "trauma"🙄? I'm sure you can guess what I think. See you at 2pm EST!!!

@JulieCar94 They will never get a full extraction. They will get the information from her phones that Diller and Co. ask for. There will be no computer extraction.

One final thought on yesterday's hearing in the O'Keefe wrongful death case against Karen Read. While Read's supporters gleefully dance around as if they "won" something, their celebration is shortsighted. One of the O'Keefe's allegations is that Read commited reckless/intentional infliction of emotional distress by "outrageously creating a false narrative." If you think her phone extractions will not play heavily in proving this, you are not living in reality. We have already seen evidence of this in Aidan Kearney's phone extraction. Imagine what hers hold. And to that end, the fact that the statement "do you have any clue what was on my phones that they took" went completely unchallenged by the defense, the wise are now seeing how the plaintiffs are building that pesky little conciousness of guilt argument. OOPSIE!!!

@DixieNormu95224 I would never text Aiden anything I didn't want shared with the world. He us the leakiest journalist ever. At least he has endless content now.

People say things in private texts that they would never say standing behind a podium or sitting in a courtroom or on social media. That’s just human nature. Text messages are personal. They’re emotional. They’re often sarcastic, venting, joking, or written in the moment without thinking about how they’ll look years later on a screen. We already saw exactly what that looks like when Michael Proctor’s phone extractionbecame public. Private messages between friends, written casually and crudely, suddenly became headline material. They didn’t change the physical evidence in the case, but they absolutely shaped public perception because people could now see how someone involved in the investigation spoke when they thought no one else was watching. Now we’re seeing a similar tactic being used in reverse. Instead of debating the evidence in the case, supporters of the Alberts and McCabes appear to be combing through a full phone extraction looking for any embarrassing, sarcastic, or heated messages between Turtleboy and anyone who ever texted him. The goal isn’t necessarily to prove anything about the night John O’Keefe died. The goal is to publicly shame people who communicated with him and make others think twice before speaking out. And when you do that publicly, you create a chilling effect. People start asking themselves If I text someone involved in this case, will my messages be plastered all over the internet next? That kind of pressure shifts the conversation away from the actual evidence and toward reputation management and intimidation It also conveniently redirects attention away from the core questions people have been asking since the beginning the timelines, the digital evidence, the witness statements, and the inconsistencies that still haven’t been fully explained. Private texts can reveal attitude. They can show bias. But they can also be taken wildly out of context, when someone is trying to score points in the court of public opinion. And in a case that has already been tried twice in the court of law, turning private conversations into public spectacle doesn’t get anyone closer to the truth. It just turns the whole thing into another social media battlefield. The real reason they are doing this is not about TB or anyone that texted him... the real reason is High profile defense cases are extremely expensive. Legal teams, investigators, experts, digital forensics all of it costs money. If someone wanted to undermine the defense effort without addressing the evidence, one effective method is to Create controversy around the people supporting the cause. Or Make supporters look reckless, unethical, or embarrassing or Scare off casual donors who don’t want to be associated with drama. The goal isn’t necessarily to prove anything. The goal is to make supporting the cause socially risky. When donations slow down, the defense loses resources. This is their real end game....ifs all about the $$$$$$

@melrevision How come your sources are not being kept a secret? Listen Turtle that is journalism 101, kepp your sources confidential. It is not Meredith's duty to keep your sources confidential.

This is so fucked up.

@DoctorTurtleboy @FreeKarenRead3 How did they get your phone extraction? You gave it to them.

@FreeKarenRead3 Karen Reads private messages as well as her attorneys are now being shared by people who want her in jail. You’re ok with that. Stop pretending to support Karen Read

Aidan is crying so hard about his “leaked” phone extraction. Boo fucking hoo scum bag. KAREN READ FOREVER

@GreekPuppyQueen The turtle has a habit of messy personal relationships. He seems to love all the drama. He is shady AF.

MEREDITH ONEIL intentionally passed around TB’s phone extraction KNOWING it could only harm KAREN READ… that’s the end game. She’s been the enemy from within all along!