The Persecution of Jack Bates, Part 3: Obfuscating History

25th March 2013 // Op-ed

(Author’s note: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this series are available through these links.)

As detailed in the first two parts of this series, the wrongful slagging of early Excapsa (UltimateBet) programmer Jack Bates, who had no role whatsoever in either the programming of, or participation in, the insider cheating that later rocked UltimateBet, has led to years of Bates’ being subject to unjustified and public abuse.

The primary antagonists most responsible for Bates’ undeserved plight appear to be California civil attorney Alan Engle, who while representing several wronged players in a lawsuit that attempted to retrieve funds from UB parent Excapsa, wrongfully described Bates as a “possible” defendant while describing him as a manager or owner of the company. In fact, Bates was neither.

The second person who bears responsibility, as examined previously, was and is supposed UB scandal documentarian K. (Kenneth) Scott Bell, who for years has inserted Bates’ name into discussions of the case, consulted briefly with Engle on the California civil case, and who has mounted an antagonistic attack on Bates, both publicly and in e-mails, simply because Bates has refused to serve as a source for Bell’s project.

When one writes this to a possible source, in May of 2011, and the e-mail has the following as the subject line, how much respect does one deserve?

“Subject: When did you learn you assisted extortion?”

Sure, if you get that e-mail, you’re going to read it, but unless you actually have something to hide, you’re not likely to respond too kindly. Bates, for his part, responded far more pleasantly than I would have. He did mention that one of the three possibilities for explaining Bell’s assertions was that Bell was delusional, but that’s still nicer than I would have been.

If you’d like to read what Bell claims is his entire series of contacts with Bates (though I know some early contact, attempts by Bell through Bates’ Facebook page haven’t been mentioned), then visit this page, published recently by Bell, which shows this series of e-mails from 2010 to 2012, most of which were sent by Bell and many of which Bates ignored. It includes the tasty exchange referenced above.

Others of those letters are doozies as well. I even get a mention or two within what I can only call the most bizarre collection of source-approaching screeds I’ve ever seen.

And, at the very end of it, a lovely little bonus, from a June, 2012 e-mail sent by Bell:

A “wow” can’t begin to describe this. In a separate post, Bell describes his method as “playing bad cop,” but it’s much, much worse than that, and it shows how disgusting this whole Jack Bates episode has been.

See, Bell apparently knows Bates is innocent. The e-mail exchange linked above is actually a subpage of this blog entry on Bell’s documentary site, where he evidently felt the need to attempt to explain himself after essentially having his hat handed to him in Bates’ public AMA thread on Reddit, where he quickly showed up to again badger Bates.

We’ll have some highlights from that thread in the next post, but here’s a related e-mail from Bell, this one to Engle two days after Engle filed his civil complaint, and likely part of that “review” process Bell mentioned. It was written five months before the paragraph presented above:

From: Scott Bell [email protected]

To: Alan Engle <redacted>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: UB Complaint

4-21 – Jack Bates has no discernible involvement other than being an early programmer. For Defendants, I would replace his name with James Hendrie, Scott Kirkowski, Whitney Arnold, Carolyn Heick and Uri Kozai on the tech side. I would also add Mansour Matloubi, Duane J. Weum and Phillip Hellmuth on the investor side. Significant owner interests who ended up with assets from the site and the scam. If the goal is to force a settlement, these names might provide greater leverage.

I look at that list and think it represents as much of a fishing expedition designed to cater to Bell’s research and investigatory goals more than it is an indication of possible guilty parties or defendants for Bell’s case.

What Bell’s single excerpted e-mail as he’s presented doesn’t tell his readers is exactly how Bates’ name was introduced into the mix. It would be far more instructive to see all of the correspondence between Bell and Engle that mentions Bates, and it would likely resolve the question of who’s to blame for the years-long farce.

The thing is, I’d been aware of all this for some time. I’d been in contact with Bates for roughly the same amount of time as others, having first approached him in May of 2010. Jack didn’t really want to talk to me either, and I respected that; being a whistleblower is not a choice anyone should be forced to make. But by the time Engle filed his action, I’d long since become convinced of Bates’ innocence regarding the UB cheating, and I was alarmed.

Without trying to tip off that Jack was one of my sources, though Jack has since acknowledged it, I wrote the following to Engle on Jan. 17th, 2012 as soon as I saw the details of the filing. “I’m pretty sure Jack Bates (despite being an early programmer) is not who you’re after.”

I followed that up with a Twitter post a few days later, and out of respect for Jack’s privacy, I had to let him take the lead on what to say, and when. Still, I posted this:

Haley Hintze ‏@Haley_Hintze 25 Jan 12 Based on my evaluation and as-yet-unreleased info, I believe programmer Jack Bates’ mention in RICO UB lawsuit is erroneous a/o misleading.

That still stands. Next time, a trip to a Reddit AMA.