Department of Justice (DOJ) would comment on the matter, it was reported that such an investigation "would fit the federal law enforcement strategy by trying to make an example out of prominent targets". The DOJ maintained that online poker violates the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 (Federal Wire Act), but later changed their opinion on that matter. On April 15, 2011, the DOJ unsealed an indictment, dated March 10, 2011, against two of the owners / employees (Ray Bitar and Nelson Burtnick) of Full Tilt Poker, along with some of the owners / employees of PokerStars and Absolute Poker. The defendants were charged with fraud, money laundering, and violation of United States federal gambling laws, and certain domain names for the sites were seized by the FBI. The Full Tilt Poker homepage was reinstated six days later on April 20, 2011. On September 20, 2011, the DOJ accused certain Full Tilt principals of defrauding poker players out of more than $300 million. The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York filed a motion to amend an earlier civil complaint to allege that company directors Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst, and Ray Bitar operated what the DOJ claims was a Ponzi scheme that allowed the company to pay out $444 million to themselves and other owners, which included other famous poker players. A lawyer for Ferguson has denied the allegations, suggesting that the issues may have been the result of mismanagement rather than malice. Bitar surrendered to authorities on July 2, 2012, to deal with the civil and criminal case that is pending against him in New York . On April 15, 2013, Bitar reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to criminal charges, and was sentenced to time served and ordered to surrender his assets, rumored to include various homes and $40 million in cash. Full Tilt Relaunch PokerStars, having acquired the assets of Full Tilt as part of its settlement with the DOJ, reopened Full Tilt Poker on Nov. 6, 2012 to players from most of the world. Customers from the United States could not either sign up for new accounts nor play from their existing accounts. The new Full Tilt Poker remained a standalone site with its own software and player pool separate from that of PokerStars. On August 1, 2014, Amaya Gaming Group completed the purchase of Rational Group, the owner of PokerStars