EXTRA...

Ptown Poker Player; Philadelphia Museum sues Osterville man for $2.4 million; Wellfleet oysters in the cellar

Provincetown poker player takes home first place
Cape Cod resident last lady standing in Atlantic City tournament

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey -- The poker action was wild at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa with two final tables taking place on Monday. The morning's action started with the conclusion of the Ladies Event which began with 390 players, the highest attendance of any Ladies Tournament in Atlantic City. The final table was formed around 1:00 AM as these tenacious female players continued to play until a champion was crowned. Emily Flax of Provincetown, MA, was the last lady standing at 4:00 AM, taking home $30,927 in first place.

"I am so excited I won," commented Flax. "I started to believe I had a real chance to win when we made the final table." After picking up her winnings and her engraved champion's watch, Flax's smile brightened up the entire Event Center as she told the crowd: "I'm going to Spa to enjoy my victory before heading home. Borgata is out of this world!"

Read the rest of the story in the Casino City Times here.  Leave a comment

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Fired port-museum chief bought $23K deck furniture
Osterville resident John S. Carter's home may be seized

A lawyer for John S. Carter, the former president of the Independence Seaport Museum (on right) at Penn's Landing, said yesterday he was blindsided by the museum's lawsuit, filed Monday, alleging that Carter had stolen an estimated $2.4 million from the museum.

Mark Cedrone, Carter's attorney, said he had been "completely surprised" by the lawsuit, noting that he had been attempting to negotiate a resolution with museum officials.  "There's no question that John Carter did some things he probably shouldn't have, and we'd like to try and remedy that, but he's not responsible for stealing $2.4 million," Cedrone said.

The lawsuit alleges that most of the losses, about $1.8 million, involved Carter's personal use of museum boats.  Carter was fired last June, following an internal investigation. The museum's chairman of the board, Peter McCausland, said yesterday that the museum seeks the return of all its assets and reimbursement of the stolen money, as well as the cost of its own investigation.

McCausland said insurance is expected to cover about $1 million. The museum also wants to freeze Carter's assets in his Cape Cod hometown of Osterville...  In one example, Carter had more than $23,000 worth of deck furniture shipped to his Osterville residence but expensed it to the museum's yacht, the Enticer, the lawsuit said. The Enticer was sold last June for $1.9 million... Read the rest of the Philadelphia Daily News story here.  Leave a comment
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Shore leave:
Wellfleet shellfisherman pulls oysters from sea to hibernate in his backyard

Commercial oyster-farming on Cape Cod is a bit of a shell game in winter -- ice and cold can damage both oysters and equipment. That’s why shellfishermen such as Jim O’Connell of the Wellfleet Shellfish Co. "pit" their oysters -- moving them from the metal racks on the ocean floor where they grow to an onshore pit or cellar to sit out the coldest months.

O’Connell usually pits his oysters in December. But because of this year’s unseasonably warm weather, he waited until mid-January. Transferring his 250,000 oysters -- in mesh bags and plastic baskets -- from the sea floor off Wellfleet to a cellar in his back yard takes several days, and a trio of teenage assistants.

Pitting "protects my investment of time and money and it protects the oysters I’m trying to make a living with," O’Connell said. "They go into a root cellar where they can live a long time"... Read the rest of the Herald story with an Oyster Stew recipe here.