Professional poker player Scott Obst, the “Bad Beat Deadbeat” who authorities have issued an arrest warrant for because he owes $115,000 in child support payments, balked at paying a $2 million judgment he was hit with by a court in the 1990s, in connection with his work in the adult film industry, PokerHelper has learned exclusively.

A television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, reported last week that authorities in Wisconsin had issued an arrest warrant for Obst, 39, who now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, because he owes $115,000 in back child support payments for a son, Andrew, 17, who lives in the Milwaukee area with his mother. Despite making $37,000 a month as a professional poker player, Obst hasn’t made child support payments in three years, the TV station, WTMJ, reported.

PokerHelper.com can now report that the child support payments are not the first payments that deadbeat dad Obst has balked at paying.

According to a court document posted on the State Bar of Wisconsin official website, at www.wisbar.org/res/capp/2005/2004ap001942.htm, and discovered by PokerHelper.com, Obst was one of a group of five men hit with a $2 million judgment after the company Obst and the others worked for, Mared Industries, Inc., sued the five for stealing trade secrets.

Two years after the court made the $2 million judgment against Obst and the others, only $200,000 of it had been paid, the document shows.

According to the document, which is an official document from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, “In the early 1990s, Obst worked in sales for Mared. Mared used telemarketing to sell industrial cutting tools, abrasives, and diamond blades. A division of Mared also sold adult videos. Obst and several others in sales left Mared, and, in April of 1992, Mared sued Obst and the others, claiming that they stole trade secrets, including confidential customer information.

“On October 5, 1992, after Mared repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to get discovery responses from the defendants in that action, the trial court entered a default judgment against Obst and the others for $2,377,140.90. Over the next two years, Mared was able to collect a little more than $200,000 on the judgment.”

The document goes on to say Mared rehired Obst in 1996, at which time Mared and Obst signed a settlement and compromise agreement that said Mared would release Obst from the 1992 judgment, in return for Obst’s promise not to “defraud” Mared.

The document also says Obst agreed, “not to compete with Mared for 18 months after he left Mared’s employ and not to contact anyone who had been a Mared customer during the 12-month period before he left Mared. The settlement agreement also had an automatic-enforcement clause: In the event of Obst’s breach of any provision of this agreement, Mared will be entitled to vacate the release of Obst from the judgment…”

The document continues: “On October 22, 1996, consistent with its settlement agreement with Obst, Mared filed a release of judgment with the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, releasing Obst from the 1992 judgment…Obst left Mared in February of 2003. He moved to Nevada, and formed Seam Consulting, Inc., and Ballistic Video, Inc. On July 18, 2003, Mared filed a petition in Milwaukee County to reopen and reinstate the 1992 judgment, claiming that Obst violated the covenant-not-to-compete clause in the 1996 settlement agreement by operating competing companies, employing former Mared employees and using Mared’s confidential trade secrets.

“The trial court entered judgment reinstating the 1992 judgment on July 22, 2003. On September 19, 2003, Obst moved to reopen and vacate the 2003 reinstatement of the 1992 judgment. In an affidavit attached to his motion, Obst denied that he had violated the settlement agreement. Obst also challenged the validity of the settlement agreement, claiming the settlement agreement did not authorize the trial court to reinstate the 1992 judgment, the settlement agreement was superseded by the subsequent employment contracts and the covenant not to compete in the settlement agreement was invalid under California law, which was designated by Obst’s employment agreements with Mared as the state whose law would apply to those agreements…

“On April 1, 2004…Obst’s lawyer told the trial court that Obst was withdrawing his request because Obst cannot afford to proceed with the trial. It’s a matter of cost, and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to prepare for a trial, do the discovery.”

The document did not make clear how much more, if any, of the $2,000,000 Obst has paid since running out of money for the court case.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)