Former NWP weirdo who threatened me over Jami Lafay kicked the bucket in September... but who was he?

[Dan Druff]

Back when I called out Jami Lafay for her shady Gofundme in February, a lot of freaks came out of the woodwork to insult/attack me. No matter what I said or what I tried to show them, they characterized me as a cruel misogynist who was picking on Jami because she was a vulnerable woman with cancer.

Some of the Jami defenders were simps trying to impress her. Others were extreme feminists who turned the whole thing into a matter of gender (which, of course, it wasn't). Others had a relative who had recently passed from cancer (or was currently suffering from it), and could only see the cancer part of the story, and not the shadiness surrounding the Gofundme campaign.

While I also had many on my side, as well as "silent majority" supporters who PM'd me but wouldn't say anything publicly, the whole thing became incredibly stressful to deal with. The ones attacking me were, for the most part, complete strangers and complete unknowns in poker.

But there was one exception. A guy on Twitter named @ThomasDavis722 was coming at me really hard and aggressively, and it appeared he had some kind of history with me. I didn't know who he was. I did not remember any Thomas Davis, nor had I ever interacted with the guy before. He also had almost no followers, and no picture of himself.

I then scrolled back through his past tweets, and found that, 4 months prior to the Jami controversy, in October 2022, he wrote a scathing response to my @Pokerfraudalert account, after I had posted a notice that the show was in the archives. His response was something along the lines of calling it right wing lies and propaganda, which already was strange, because I mostly keep politics off the show.

So the guy definitely had an issue with me, but what was it, how far did it go back, and why?

I tried ignoring him at first, but his tweets started getting increasingly ominous, including one where he remarked that he "lived near Todd", followed by more angry insults. Other tweets revealed almost encyclopedic knowledge of incidents on Neverwinpoker, Donkdown, and early PFA!



Often he would twist these stories into something different, and would frame them to make me look as bad as possible, but the bottom line was that clearly he had been around NWP since the beginning. BUT WHO WAS IT? And why did he hate me so much?

He also had somewhat of an obsession with Micon, though at this point the Micon obsession seemed to have turned to admiration. He would try to get Micon's attention in tweet replies, but Micon never acknowledged him.

He also tweeted to Brett Richey at one point, and acted as if they knew each other. I asked Brett privately if he knew a Thomas Davis, and he said he did not. Brett did not respond to him publicly.

I now have some answers to the above, but many more questions. I'm hoping some of you might be able to help unravel this mystery.


Continued next post...

[ftpjesus]

[Dan Druff]

Against my better judgment, I decided to privately message Thomas Davis on Twitter. This was back in February/March of 2023.

I knew this could possibly worsen things and cause him to go further psycho, but since he was a former NWP/DD/PFA member, I figured I might be able to reason with him. I did not remember ever banning anyone with that name, so unless Thomas Davis was a fake name, I couldn't imagine why he was so angry at me, aside from our political differences.


Our PM conversation was very frustrating, as I expected it would be. Sometimes he'd be reasonable, other times he'd act like a psycho who saw me as the epitome of evil.

Oddly, he did give me two sincere compliments. He said that he believed I was very intelligent, and also very trustworthy with money. In fact, he remarked that if he needed someone to hold his life savings, I would be the one he'd choose to do it.

However, at the same time, he claimed I was a sadistic sociopath who enjoyed making others suffer, especially women. He was 100% certain I was "attacking" Jami because I found her to be a weak target -- a female with cancer. He was convinced that I was not calling out her Gofundme because I legitimately was concerned about it, but rather because it was an excuse to make a weak, suffering woman miserable.

I tried to counter with the proof that Jami had been lying. He didn't want to acknowledge it. I tried to explain that I had gone after a ton of men in poker I felt were shady -- way more than women I've criticized. He countered that these men were "betas", so therefore I saw them as equivalent to women (lol). I then cited various men I had called out who were anything but beta, including known criminals, and he ignored that.

When I tried to ask who he was on NWP/DD/PFA, he refused to tell me. He claimed he quit PFA a short time after it opened, then lurked there a few years, then hadn't looked at it since about 2015. He claimed he was presently in a medical facility, with his heart down to 8% function, and he would be dead within 6 months. I told him I didn't believe that, but he told me that it was true, and he didn't care if I believed it. He claimed to have made peace with it already.

He said he was 45 years old, and lived in the Inland Empire area of California, which in the Riverside/San Bernadino area. He claimed we had met before because we were "in the same social circle a long time ago" (presumably meaning NWP), but that we never hung out individually or talked much when he saw me in person. He also admitted that I had never done anything to him personally, nor did I do anything to any friends of his. However, he claimed to be enraged regarding watching how I treated people, including Micon. He said that I was pure evil and he had tons of examples of it, from watching me operate for almost 20 years.

Again, I reminded him of all the people I helped over the years, with no potential gain in it for myself. I explained again that calling out Jami was simply to protect the community from giving money to someone who appeared very shady.

Just when I was about to give up, a breakthrough seemed to have occurred. Thomas told me that he finally understood me better, and thanked me for "discussing this like a gentleman". He said that he still didn't agree with a lot of things I say and do, but he realized I wasn't that bad of a guy. I then told him I felt bad for him regarding his medical diagnosis, and apologized for doubting it at first. He said he understood why I didn't believe it, but that it was the truth.

He then made some small talk with me, and went on a long rant about Micon, Adam Schoenfeld, and Seals. He told me a bunch of information I didn't know before (but had no way to verify if it was true). He also claimed to know Micon's net worth, and his exact history with crypto -- first getting rich from it, then losing almost everything, then getting rich again.

I'm not sure if any of this stuff about Micon/Schoenfeld/Seals was true, and I was surprised he was telling it to me. I thought maybe this was just to fuck with me, but he did say a few things I knew to be true (but never made public), so he definitely wasn't feeding me 100% lies. I never repeated or posted any of this stuff, but it was interesting to read.

We ended our DM conversation, and that seemed to be that.



But it wasn't.

Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

Thomas went quiet for a few weeks, but he got particularly enraged when I started making public reference to Jami's past legal troubles.

For some reason, he thought this was completely out of line, and it enraged him all over again. His warmer feelings for me went out the window, and now he became once again convinced that I was an evil sociopath who took delight in torturing female cancer patients.

This time, however, he took it a step further.

He wrote me, "I'm done with your personal shit show here, you are an irrational and instable person in my humble opinion and not worth my time to try and make you understand empathy and mental health. Just remember what I said about appropriate responses and your attacking of Jami really should stop sooner rather than later."

When I asked if that was a threat, he responded, "All will be revealed", and would not answer further.


While this was not a direct threat, I didn't like the "just remember what I said" and "your attacking of Jami really should stop sooner rather than later", as if he was going to stop it if I didn't stop "sooner".

I decided to look into who he actually was.

Did I figure it out? Sort of.


Read on...

[Dan Druff]

When trying to deduce an anonymous online person's identity, the best you can do is to look at all of their activity, especially before they were in any controversy. Sometimes people will accidentally reveal small details when their guard is down, which can allow you to piece together a picture to deduce who they are.

Scrolling back through his Twitter activity, I saw that he entered Shaun Deeb's attempt at buying thousands of lotto tickets to win Powerball. He sent $500, and tweeted to Shaun's wife that he sent the money on Zelle as "Thomas K".

Well, that was a hint. The real first name seemed to be Thomas, but the last name Davis seemed to be fake, and instead began with K.

I got a more detailed clue when I saw that he rolled over his equity (Deeb's pool of tickets won some smaller prizes) to Deeb's second attempt to buy tickets. He reminded Shaun's wife that he was "Thomas K" on her list of payments! He responded to a screen shot she had posted of that list, so now all I had to do was find Thomas K on the list for $500, and I'd have his real name!


But not so fast. I found the name "Thomas Kasparovish", but no such person existed. According to my public records database, not a single Thomas Kasparovish existed in the United States, and even alternate spellings of that name (such as Thomas Kasparovich) also revealed nothing.

The age he gave of 45 made sense, though. I found another old tweet where he discussed playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out in elementary school, and yet another old tweet where he discussed playing a 1995 game "in high school".

There was no Thomas Kasparovish or Kasparovich in Hendon Mob results, either.

I figured he must have sent the funds to Ashley Deeb under a phony name -- or one morphed from his real one. Or perhaps Ashley misspelled it so badly that I wasn't able to figure out the correct one. Either way, I couldn't ask her, as Shaun is no buddy of mine.

His supposedly grave diagnosis -- a heart with 8% function -- was questionable. Among other things, he offered in February 2023 to fly out anywhere to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out for money, and also tweeted angrily at an extreme weight loss clinic for refusing to take him on as a client. If he was literally on his deathbed, why was he offering to fly out-of-state to play video games for money, or trying to enter extreme weight loss programs?

I figured at the time that he was probably having health issues, but was probably exaggerating the extent of it.

As you can see from the thread title, the guy is dead, so obviously the heart issues must have been real. But who was he?

I'll get to that shortly. Read on...

[Dan Druff]

I tried to recall people I had met at the summer NWP WSOP parties -- ones I didn't really know, but had been there and maybe talked to me a little bit here and there.

Given that we're talking about parties from 14-17 years ago, it's hard to remember strangers I barely talked to.

I went back to the Thomas Davis thing. What if Kasparovish was some fake name he liked to use, but Davis really was his last name?

I found something which seemed to be paydirt. There was a guy I found, age 45 from the inland empire -- in fact the exact city Thomas claimed to be from. His real name was Brian, but he sometimes used the alias Thomas Davis. He had Hendon Mob results. I looked him up further, and found he was a 5'9"-ish black guy. This started to make sense. I had remembered a quiet black guy around 5'9" at these NWP WSOP parties who seemed to be there sometimes, but I never found out who he was on the site or who specifically invited him. I had remembered him being nice, and always acted friendly when he'd see me. We had a few brief conversations, but other than that didn't interact that much. He kinda just hung in the background at these parties.

I didn't remember his name, though he told me at the time. However, "Brian" seemed like it might be what I remembered.

If this was him, I wondered what made Brian hate me so much. The guy I remembered was always nice, friendly, and softspoken when I saw him.

However, taking a closer look at Brian revealed a few problems. For one, all of his Hendonmob results began in 2013. The one I had met was in poker in the 2000s. Did he really have zero cashes of any kind until 2013? Second, there was no evidence he had any kind of health problems. His publicly accessible Facebook pictures showed him looking active and healthy. Also, his writing style on Facebook didn't really match that of the Thomas Davis I had been talking to.

So in some ways he fit perfectly -- same city, same age, same name (at least alias name), and actually had poker results! However, part of me had a nagging doubt about the whole thing. It started to feel like Brian was a coincidental find.

So was it?

Read on...

[Dan Druff]

After hitting what seemed to be a dead end with this Brian guy, I gave up.

However, when I ran into that Twitter controversy involving that girl Lindsey, Thomas actively started trolling me on Twitter again, and trying to encourage people to keep hassling me. He offered them to DM him for "info" on me. He even responded to my "Is this a threat?" question from two months prior, DMing me, "No need for threats when one can watch you simply implode and reveal everything yourself. *chefs kiss*"

I blocked him at that point.

But about a week after that, I decided to take another crack at that Kasparovish thing.

I decided I hadn't yet tried enough alternate spellings of the name. After all, if his name was anything like "Kasparovish", it would be easy to mangle, especially when you're entering a ton of names into an Excel spreadsheet, as Ashely Deeb was doing at the time.

Then I had my a-ha moment.

I found a Thomas Michael Kasprovich, age 45, from California. So "Kasparo" was really "Kaspro", and "vish" was really "vich".

It was even more promising when I found this 1999 article where a Thomas Kasprovich talked about being a college sportsbettor, and again the age matched. That made it more likely he was into poker during the boom.

But the real shocker was the article I found from a Wisconsin newspaper, from back in 2010:

MOUNT PLEASANT — A local man has been charged for allegedly spying on ATM users with binoculars, then using their personal identification numbers to pull money from their accounts.

Thomas Michael Kasprovich, 33, 1154 Prairie Drive No. 245, is charged with 27 counts of felony personal identity theft for allegedly trying to take money out of six bank accounts. He was unsuccessful much of the time but did reportedly manage to take $1,800 out of three of the accounts.

Police went to Johnson Bank on Sept. 1 after employees called saying a man had been parked in a lot near the ATM and was using binoculars or a scope to watch customers as they used the ATM. Employees said Kasprovich had been there for days, and they were concerned about his “unusual behavior.” When officers confronted Kasprovich on Sept. 1 they found a high-powered binocular-type scope inside his van.

Employees said he would watch as people completed their transactions, then immediately drive up behind them and attempt his own transaction. The people police spoke to said they did not completely close out their session at the ATM before Kasprovich made his alleged attempts to get money from their accounts.

All the thefts and attempted thefts took place in the last 10 days of August, at either Quik Trip, 943 S. East Frontage Road, or Johnson Bank, 6700 Washington Ave.

On Aug. 21, Kasprovich allegedly took $800 from a woman’s account after she took $100 out of her account at Quik Trip. That day he also allegedly tried five times to withdraw $500 from a man’s account at Johnson Bank. The next day Kasprovich allegedly tried six times to get $300 out of another Johnson Bank customer’s account.

On Aug. 27, Kasprovich allegedly took $400 from a man’s account after he used the Johnson Bank ATM. The next day he allegedly tried six times to get money from another bank customer’s account.

Kasprovich allegedly returned to Quik Trip on Aug. 31 and took $400 from the account of a woman whose boyfriend used her ATM card. The two $200 transactions came minutes after the woman’s boyfriend left the machine. Store video showed Kasprovich walking up to the ATM after the man was finished, and then leaving in a green conversion van.

http://www.journaltimes.com/news/loc...cc4c002e0.html




Yes, folks, the guy calling me the epitome of evil had been arrested for sitting in a van with high-powered binoculars, waiting to pick off people's ATM PIN numbers, and then stealing from them. Classy guy.

No wonder he was so sensitive about my "picking on" Jami! He was a scammer himself, who clearly identified with her! In fact, recall that his real rage came from my discussion of Jami's past legal issues. Now you see why that struck a nerve.

If you want to see a shorter article without the paywall, you can find it here (I posted the text of the longer one above).

You have to be a real piece of shit to sit there stealing random people's ATM numbers and then running up to the machine to withdraw cash from their accounts. This asshole sat there lecturing me about what an awful person I was, too. Amazing.

100% he was the same guy. Even had one shitty Hendon Mob cash.

But where did the name Davis come in? I'll tell you in the next post...

[sah_24]

When trying to deduce an anonymous online person's identity, the best you can do is to look at all of their activity, especially before they were in any controversy. Sometimes people will accidentally reveal small details when their guard is down, which can allow you to piece together a picture to deduce who they are.

Scrolling back through his Twitter activity, I saw that he entered Shaun Deeb's attempt at buying thousands of lotto tickets to win Powerball. He sent $500, and tweeted to Shaun's wife that he sent the money on Zelle as "Thomas K".

Well, that was a hint. The real first name seemed to be Thomas, but the last name Davis seemed to be fake, and instead began with K.

I got a more detailed clue when I saw that he rolled over his equity (Deeb's pool of tickets won some smaller prizes) to Deeb's second attempt to buy tickets. He reminded Shaun's wife that he was "Thomas K" on her list of payments! He responded to a screen shot she had posted of that list, so now all I had to do was find Thomas K on the list for $500, and I'd have his real name!


But not so fast. I found the name "Thomas Kasparovish", but no such person existed. According to my public records database, not a single Thomas Kasparovish existed in the United States, and even alternate spellings of that name (such as Thomas Kasparovich) also revealed nothing.

The age he gave of 45 made sense, though. I found another old tweet where he discussed playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out in elementary school, and yet another old tweet where he discussed playing a 1995 game "in high school".

There was no Thomas Kasparovish or Kasparovich in Hendon Mob results, either.

I figured he must have sent the funds to Ashley Deeb under a phony name -- or one morphed from his real one. Or perhaps Ashley misspelled it so badly that I wasn't able to figure out the correct one. Either way, I couldn't ask her, as Shaun is no buddy of mine.

His supposedly grave diagnosis -- a heart with 8% function -- was questionable. Among other things, he offered in February 2023 to fly out anywhere to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out for money, and also tweeted angrily at an extreme weight loss clinic for refusing to take him on as a client. If he was literally on his deathbed, why was he offering to fly out-of-state to play video games for money, or trying to enter extreme weight loss programs?

I figured at the time that he was probably having health issues, but was probably exaggerating the extent of it.

As you can see from the thread title, the guy is dead, so obviously the heart issues must have been real. But who was he?

I'll get to that shortly. Read on...

A fat retard, like pretty much all of PFA ... lols

[BCR]

I’m racking my brain, but nothing is instantly connecting with the age and where he’s from. I wouldn’t have taken that as a threat personally, particularly from a guy saying he has one foot in the grave. Calling someone pure evil is kind of emotional for a dude. Almost feels like a chick.

[splitthis]

I’m racking my brain, but nothing is instantly connecting with the age and where he’s from. I wouldn’t have taken that as a threat personally, particularly from a guy saying he has one foot in the grave. Calling someone pure evil is kind of emotional for a dude. Almost feels like a chick.

Dude has a feminine vibe. I don’t remember a badger mascot, just a turtle mascot and that guys name was jmmmmmmmmm.

[splitthis]

Do remember the swinging pp badger hopefully his name will come to me sometime today.