Any NYC Poker Lawyers out there?

You've all heard about the EV bust last night. I was in it. I was in the tourney, had just gotten heads up, and had a significant chip lead [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Anyway, they obviously seized all the cash in the bank to use as evidence (yeah, right). It's illegal to profit from running a game. It isn't illegal to play. Since it isn't illegal to play, and the bank is mostly make up of money owed the players, I would think the players would have a reasonable legal claim to the cash, once the trials of the people arrested have been settled.

However, this would require a few things. One would be that each player would have to be able to prove how much he's owed. This is spelled out by his chips. The cops were counting peoples chips. I'm sure after they processed out all of the player, the swept up all the chips and bagged them for evidence. If the cops could be forced to count each players chips, and give the player a receipt, then the player could file a claim for his money.

The cops are not going to want to do this. It would make more work for them, and it would prevent them from pocketing some portion of the cash. Since this would enable the players to possibly recover their cash, this might make these raids less lucrative to both the city and the individual cops.

Would it be possible to sue the city to force them to do this? Is there some pissed off poker playing lawyer out there who'd be willing to do this (especially considering that every third guy in these clubs is a lawyer)?