Poker Rooms Houston News
The saga of the city of Houston and itspoker clubs has to be one of the top stories of 2019. With arrests made andallegations of illegal money laundering, it seemed as if law enforcement hadthe upper hand. With the collapse of the case against those clubs, however, itis now pulling back the curtain on the legal system in Houston and thepoliticians and attorneys who were involved and roiling the political system.
Thursday, May 2, 2019 HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) - Houston police and investigators with the Harris County District Attorney's Office busted two upscale poker rooms Wednesday just minutes before one. Houston Poker Rooms Raided By iHeartMedia's John Labus May 2, 2019 Two private poker clubs in West Houston are raided and shut down as part of a money laundering and organized crime investigation.
Latest Actions Affecting Texas Politics
After learning that an advisor, AmirMireskandari, to Houston District Attorney Kim Ugg had been involved with two Houstonpoker clubs – the Post Oak Poker Club and the Prime Social Poker Club – chargeshad to be dropped by Ugg because of a conflict of interest. According toreports, Mireskandari allegedly was paid a fee to write legislation that would easethe way for the two businesses to become legally licensed in the city for theiroperations. While Mireskandari continues to deny these allegations, otherpeople in the Texas political scene are feeling the heat from their associationswith Mireskandari.
Accordingto reports from the Houston Chronicle and reporter Zach Despart, Mireskandariwas a prominent booster in campaigns for several Democratic politicians in thecity and county. Such people as Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris CountyCommissioner Adrian Garcia, Texas Attorney General candidate Justin Nelson andothers were introduced by Mireskandari to operators of the poker clubs inquestion. Photos at the Chronicle show two of the owners of Post OakPoker Club posing with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner in December 2018,although Turner denies ever meeting the men.
These men and others are now disavowing anyassociation with Mireskandari or the poker club owners. Fort Bend CountryDistrict Attorney Brian Middleton was one of the most vehement deniers, remarkingin Despart’s article that, if he had known that Mireskandari was involved withthe poker clubs, he “wouldn’t have had anything to do with him. Period.”Middleton also returned a $15,000 contribution from Mireskandari’s politicalaction committee (PAC) Texans for Fairness
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Good Investigation or Keystone Kops?
The entire Houston situation has eitherbeen one of solid, investigative work by law enforcement or a Keystone Kopsroutine that went awry. InMay, police stormed the Post Oak Poker Club and Prime Social Poker Club,taking in nine people who were either the owners of said clubs or employed asmanagement by the clubs. None of the patrons in the clubs at the time werearrested, but other card rooms in the state of Texas took note and some suspendedtheir operations.
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Things began to unravel for Ogg and theHouston authorities in July. Investigationrevealed the alliance between Mireskandari and the two poker clubs, includinghis work regarding lobbying for the regulation of their businesses. After furtherexamination, Ogg was forced to drop the charges against the owners and managersand return more than $200,000 in cash that was seized in the raids (Ogg didforward the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, however). Thenext month, Harris County officials were forced to drop “nuisance” chargesagainst the two operations. The reason for the cancelation was that, without acriminal case to back them up, the “nuisance” violations could not be provenand, thus, prosecuted, although they can be refiled at any time.
The debacle in Houston has also brought the focus of the national media. New Yorker magazine published a lengthy story, detailing out the efforts of Mireskandari and the number of politicians and law enforcement personnel he has been able to sidle up beside. It also probes the birth of the Texas poker clubs and why they believe that they are legal, despite what the law might say.
Whether this is the end of the Houston story remains to be seen. One thing that DAs hate the most is being shown up by someone they’re prosecuting, and the Houston poker clubs have certainly done that. But Prime Social isn’t letting the case go either, suing one of their former attorneys for $1 million for misrepresentation, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty regarding their work in getting regulations passed. We may not have written the final words on the Houston poker club scene just yet.