The past few months have seen former Full Tilt Poker board members Rafe Furst and Howard Lederer work out settlements with the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. Both guys forked over millions of dollars in assets, but were able to avoid jail time by doing so. Fellow board member Chris Ferguson is in the process of trying to do the same thing.

He’s been in meetings with the US Attorney’s Office for the past few weeks to hammer out a deal. As we reported in an article about Lederer, a $42 million civil suit was brought against Ferguson. And the US Attorney’s Office of SDNY meetings are all about deciding how much of this amount he should pay.

Lederer was facing a similar $42.5 million suit, which he settled by paying fines and forfeiting property. By the end of the deal, Lederer had given up around $2.5 million in total assets. Ferguson will no doubt be hoping for the same kind of “leniency” when his case is finally decided on February 19th, 2013.

The case was actually supposed to be decided much sooner than this. However, US Attorney Preet Bharara asked the case’s judge for another few weeks after Ferguson filed for a motion to dismiss the civil suit. Obviously he won’t get this motion granted, but the court appears to be willing to work with him on the deal.

Chris Ferguson was once a feared poker player who was known more for his poker ability than Full Tilt ownership. His biggest tournament victory came in the 2000 WSOP Main Event, where he scooped a $1.5 million prize. Overall, he’s earned five WSOP gold bracelets along with $8,281,927 in tournament winnings. However, most of this money came prior to 2011, when he largely stopped playing live poker.