For quite some time now, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the high stakes poker ring that involved Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. The ring made worldwide headlines after a crooked hedge fund manager named Bradley Ruderman lost $5.2 million to the players at these games.
After defrauding his clients, Ruderman was arrested by federal authorities and forced to spill everything he knew about the poker ring. One of the most telling points included when he told authorities that Maguire was “a winner and the best player.” He may have been right too since it’s estimated that the former Spiderman actor earned $30-$40 million from the high stakes poker games.
Moving past Maguire, those who fell for Ruderman’s Ponzi scheme finally received some good news regarding the $5.2 million they were seeking. Now the investors won’t get everything back because the poker players were unaware that Ruderman’s money was fraudulently earned. However, they will receive $1.75 million, which is about a third of what was lost in the poker games.
The lawsuit against those involved in the case was settled out of court, and bankruptcy trustee Howard Ehrenberg discussed this by saying, “All of the poker defendant cases are settled. The settlement of every poker related case without having had to incur the cost of taking any of them to trial means that the fund available for the victims has been maximized.”
One player who will be paying back a portion of the money is Magure, since he’ll owe $80k to the Ponzi victims. Others who are on the hook for repaying the scammed investors include High Stakes Poker commentator Gable Kaplan, record label owner Cody Leibel, and The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes.