APA Official Response to Police Raid

[The Virus]

Australian Poker Association Official Response to Police Raid:The Australian Poker Association has retained the services of a well known Criminal Barrister and Solicitor in Mr Harry Patsouris.Doctor Joe Meissner and Mr Harry Patsouris will be the only people from the APA who will be making any official comments regarding the police raid.I have been authorised by Joe to bring its members up to date with the current situation.Mr Harry Patsouris has already been in contact with the police in regard to the raid.He is firstly endeavouring to get all APA seized property back from the police.At this stage no APA member has been charged with any offence.To date the APA has still not received a field receipt for all the property seized.Once the police record and analyse all the seized items, they then must prepare a brief to the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP). The DPP then decide if any charges will be laid.The police raided the SA Poker Championship without any warrant. They were asked on several occasions to produce a warrant.The raid was headed by the Detective Inspector Goodwin of the Drug and Organised Crime Unit. Officers from the Avatar Anti-Bikie Unit also took part in the raid.The police stated that they did not need a warrant as they had the power to raid the event under Section 51(a) of the Gaming and Lotteries Act as our members were playing a game of chance in a public place.The APA notified the police in writing that the tournament was going to be held. The police did NOT warn the APA that the event was illegal Senior Sergeant Wayne Overmeyer of the Licensing Enforcement Branch is now the officer in charge of the raid. He has stated on radio that the event was illegal as poker is a game of chance. He admitted that he was not aware of the JK case when it was proved that poker is a game of skill and in fact legal.No members of the APA on the night of the raid were offered their civil right of having a solicitor present when been questioned by the police.THE POKER COMMUNITY IS OUTRAGED THAT IT’S LAW ABIDING AUSTRALIAN CITIZENS WHERE TREATED LIKED HARDENED CRIMINALS.MOST IMPORTANTLY THE PUBLIC OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA ARE OUTRAGED AT THE COMPLETE WASTE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY AND POLICE RESOURCES. WHAT WAS THE COST TO THE COMMUNITY TO ORGANSIE 40 POLICE OFFICERS TO RAID A LEGAL POKER TOURNAMENT?THE AVATAR BIKIE TASKFORCE WAS SET UP BY THE GOVERNMENT TO PULL DOWN BIKIE FORTTRESSESS. TO DATE THEY HAVE PULLED DOWN NONE. THE AVATAR BIKIE TASKFORCE IS NOW BEING USED TO RAID LEGAL POKER TOURNAMENTS OF EVERYDAY CITIZENS.THIS IS AGAINST YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS THAT WE HAVE AS AUSTRALIAN CITIZENS.This well run event took 6 months of planning and preparation. It took up hundreds of hours of its member’s time to organise. Most importantly it cost nearly $100,000 to set up. It had in excess of 100 interstate guests booked to travel to SA to play in the tournament.The SA Police are fully aware that we run tournaments twice a week at our branch. They come past every night.The Police state that they had been aware of the event for weeks and planned the raid. I believe the police should prevent crimes and not allow crimes to happen. If they believed the event was illegal they could have called one of the organisers and stated the reasons. Instead hundreds of thousand dollars have been wasted.The Directors of the Australian Poker Association will be defending any criminal charges that are laid against it. The APA will assist any member that is charged with a criminal gaming offence from this raid. Please see www.poker-apa.comMOST IMPORTANTLY THE AUSTRALIAN POKER ASSOCIATION WILL SEEK SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGES WHEN IT PROVES THE POLICE RAID WAS UNLAWFUL THE APA WILL KEEP ITS MEMBERS UPDATED ON ALL FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS FROM THIS RAIDFinally, on a personnel note I would like to thank all the members who assisted in the event and played the freeroll. A special thanks to all our interstate guests who came over. The first tournament was a great success having 122 entrants. I personally did my best to notify all other interstate guests who had booked to arrive from Thursday about the cancellation of the tournament. However, the task was made very hard as the police took all our records and computers away.The feeling we have right at the moment is disbelief, shock, disappointment, extremely emptiness and broken hearts.The way we got treated by the police was nothing short of criminal.

[The Virus]

PLEASE BE AWARE OF A TYPO ERROR ON THE ORIGINAL POST. THE LINES POSTED SHOULD READ AS FOLLOWS...The APA notified the police in writing that the tournament was going to be held. The police did NOT warn the APA that the event was illegal.

[Guru Bob]

WOW, I had all sorts of thoughts running through my head when I read in the statement that the police had informed the APA of illegalities after Joe had denied it in a tv interview. The omission of that little word NOT makes a big bloody difference eh?

[gnu]

Fantastic response.Go APA!