In news that broke late on Friday, Black Friday payment processor Chad Elie has filed a lawsuit against his legal counsel, Jeff Ifrah (pictured). According to Forbes, “the lawyer misled [Elie] about the legalities of processing poker because the lawyer wanted to continue pocketing rich commissions.”

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The 22-page complaintwas filed on Thursday and alleges that Ifrah has ties to PokerStarsand Full Tilt. Elie and Ifrah allegedly met when the latter was representing Daniel Tzvetkoff’s Intabill, “acting on behalf of PokerStars, which was suing Elie’s company, Viable Marketing Corp.” Elie then sought out Ifrah’s legal counsel for companies that reportedly included Viable, Elite Debit, and 21 Debit, according to the lawsuit. You’ll recall that Tzvetkoff was the alleged whistle-blower behind Black Friday.

The document also claims that Ifrah represented Sun First Bank, an institution in Utah at the center of the Black Friday indictments, and added, “[Ifrah]gave Elie misleading advice to further his own pecuniary interests in his representation of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars… [Ifrah] would also receive monthly payments of $100,000 from Elie’s company 21 Debit.”

In terms of Ifrah’s reported financial gain, Elie’s legal filing claims, “[Ifrah] received in excess of $1,000,000 in commission payments from Elie’s company as [Ifrah’s] ‘cut’ from processing poker payments with the banks… It is clear that [Ifrah’s] activities in both representing Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars and Elie were clear conflicts of interests whereby [Ifrah] was continuously benefiting from his representation of both companies.”

Elie’s charges added, “[Ifrah] specifically misled Elie(pictured with Harry Reid) regarding the legalities of processing poker so that he can continue to receive monies (commission payments) from Elie… [Ifrah] provided testimony against his own clients to avoid being indicted, denying his involvement in the Black Friday affair.”

The lawsuit alleges that Elie paid Ifrah in excess of $4 million in attorney’s fees and commissions. It seeks “consequential damages… the exact amount of which will be determined at trial,” out-of-pocket costs Elie incurred since the litigation began, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.

One other point of contention in the lawsuit involves a memo that allegedly surfaced in 2010. According to Forbes, “Ifrah received a memorandum from the law firm of Akin Gump that detailed discussions between the firm’s lawyers and government lawyers in Manhattan that ‘confirmed to Akin Gump and Ifrah that third-party poker processing was illegal,’ the complaint says. But Elie claims that Ifrah failed to disclose this memorandum to Elie.”

The law offices of Sigal Chattah are defending Elie in the suit. Forbes reached out to Ifrah, who “declined to quickly comment on the lawsuit because he had not yet seen the complaint,” according to the report. Elie is currently incarcerated and, according to Forbes, will be released in June.

Ifrah became well known in the poker community in the months following Black Friday while Full Tilt was in discussions with Groupe Bernard Tapie on a buyout that never came to pass. He was the subject of several feature articles here on PocketFives.

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