CEVO has posted a statement on their website in regards to the recent Moe allegations.  The post contains an unpublished Gotfrag interview with CEVO owner Charlie Plitt and other statements:

Late last week, Moe “mOE” Assad – a player with Optx – gave interviews with two major eSports websites (Complexity Gaming and GotFrag) in which he made various accusations against CEVO and some of our partners, including claims that CEVO was withholding payment for Source Season 7 for personal reasons.

While Complexity Gaming offered CEVO an opportunity to respond prior to posting an article, GotFrag chose to publish Mr. Assad’s interview in its entirety without contacting CEVO in advance for comment.

It is important for the community to know that GotFrag was acquired by Major League Gaming, a direct competitor to CEVO. We encourage you to question the quality, validity, and motivations of GotFrag’s content in this regard.

CEVO was eventually contacted by a separate writer for GotFrag, who did interview CEVO President Charlie Plitt, for an article that was purportedly to be published at a later time. However, said article has yet to be published by GotFrag despite being delivered by CEVO.

Had CEVO been afforded an opportunity to respond, it would have been noted that a check to Mr. Assad had already been printed prior to his interviews being published, and at this time has been confirmed that Mr. Assad received his check for his CSS Season 7 winnings on Tuesday, February 17th. It would also have been noted that Mr. Assad’s team had been disqualified from the recent Alienware event when CMN detected two other Optx players cheating during the finals match.

The unpublished interview by GotFrag’s writer with Charlie Plitt is printed below.

Moe “Moe” Assad is quoted as saying that CEVO did “absolutely nothing” in regards to the Alienware tournament, and that iGames had only one admin running it. Is this true? What was CEVO’s role for the tournament, and what are the circumstances behind the situation?

For the Alienware Winter Frag Fest tournament, iGames brought in leading partners to leverage their technologies and support for the event. CEVO provided the tournament management infrastructure, including registration and anti-cheat technologies, and additional associated administration support. Both CEVO and iGames employ highly experienced administrators that have operated countless tournaments for Counter-Strike: Source, and other leading titles.

At all times the Alienware Winter Frag Fest tournament was well staffed. At no point during match play did any gamer have to wait more than a few minutes for immediate and personalized customer support. There were over 10 administrators dedicated to the support of the tournament including Plitt, Ping, Carmony, Pipher, Celone, Tannehill, Stevens, Ahn, Rippey, Ferguson, and others. As an iGames organized event, the final say on all matters was rendered by iGames’ Ferguson. Ferguson personally assisted Mr. Assad’s team with all their concerns during the tournament finals. Hence Mr. Assad’s statement that there was only one administrator during the tournament is false.

It is worth noting that the Alienware Winter Frag Fest tournament has nothing to do with Mr. Assad’s dispute over his CEVO-P earnings. iGames is facilitating all the prize payouts for that tournament and to my knowledge all prizes already have been sent out to those that have submitted prize forms for that event.

As has been stated in countless forum posts, there are many that still doubt the CMN’s ability to catch cheaters, and ability to be updated on a regular basis. Part of Assad’s public claims include assertions that the CMN can be bypassed relatively easily. Is there anything you wish to retort with or to clear with the community?

Clearly, any claims that CMN does nothing are false, as CMN detected two of Moe’s teammates cheating during the finals of the Alienware Winter Frag Fest tournament. That team has since publicly admitted to cheating and they were accordingly disqualified from the tournament. Unfortunately, rather than change his stance or simply say nothing, Moe chose to perpetrate lies throughout the community that his team had turned themselves in — a statement which is categorically false.

One of the largest misconceptions about CMN is that we have to issue client-side updates to catch new cheats, a la Cheating Death or something of that nature. CMN3 is built in such a way that client-side updates are not always necessary to detect new cheats or new methods of cheating. We purposely do not go in to details about our methodologies in order provide maximum security for our application.

As with any AC client there will always be doubters. We do our best to stay up on the latest and greatest cheats. We have an enormous repository of known cheats, both public and private. We have several moles who provide us with underground cheats, and we also acquire subscription-only cheats to make sure we stay on top of things. As a result, we ban dozens of players each season. This season was no different, despite what some people claim.

As a matter of policy we do not discuss specific cheats, but I can tell you that we detect cheats that claim to be CMN/league proof, including for-pay cheats.

Mr. Assad has gone on to explain that while the rest of his team has been paid for their CEVO-P winning season, he has not. And explains that you have personally stated that you don’t “have any intentions on signing off on it.” Is there truth to this? Could you explain the series of events that unfolded regarding the end of the CEVO-P season? Will he be paid?

This is another fabrication by Mr. Assad. The simple fact is that we did not receive his earnings forms until around February 9, which are required by law in order for us to release his winnings. Upon receipt of those forms, his check was processed in days. It is important to note that the tournament was concluded on January 15, 2009 and his check was sent out by February 13, which was within the timeframe for processing the payment as stated in the rules.

Mr. Assad claims he sent in a prior set of forms before February 9. However, we never received that first set of forms. Mr. Assad then chose to wait at least three weeks after allegedly submitting his forms before coming in to talk to anybody about it, and when he did finally talk to us, he was incredibly abrasive. We simply told him to send in another set of forms, which he did and was then quickly paid. We are always happy to talk to members about their forms, or any other issue regarding tournaments or CEVO.

So as far as Mr. Assad’s claim that I would not “sign off” on his check, that is untrue. I hope to receive an apology from Mr. Assad as he should now have his check. Again, the fact that he was paid within a month of the tournament’s conclusion, yet he still complained, speaks volumes.

Please note that throughout the history of eSports, we know of no other online organization that has ever paid out so much prize money as quickly or consistently as CEVO!

What is also claimed by Assad is that you’ve used intimidation tactics by having many admins present in the Ventrilo channel. What is your response to that claim?

This is absurd. If you have ever joined CEVO’s Ventrilo server, you would notice that we often have a number of officials hanging out in the “staff” channel, or sometimes in a private channel with myself or another executive if things are slow; so yes there are times when we have many admins present in our Ventrilo channel. But CEVO certainly does not, and has no reason to, employ intimidation tactics.

Are you running “a dictatorship”?

Of course not. On the contrary, since our inception CEVO has been run by the community. We go to great lengths and provide a forum for members to engage in open conversation about CEVO, our rules, rulings, regulations, and the future development of eSports. There is no “I” in CEVO, we are community driven and community focused and will remain true to that charter. While we want our members to enjoy our events, that does not mean we show favoritism or bend to the every whim of whatever CEVO-P player comes in to complain. There are rules and regulations in place that have been developed and refined by the community and we live within these regulations. We find that our members respect us for this.

Are there any statements you wish to deliver to the community regarding the future of CEVO, and the negativity that occasionally creeps up?

Over the course of our history, we’ve paid out over $300,000 in cash and prizes to thousands of players. Each of us here has poured our heart and soul into CEVO, so it is incredibly frustrating when people spread false information or make baseless claims about us.

That being said, we are very grateful for the support given to us by the community over the years and we will continue to put on high-quality events. We have some exciting projects under way and we plan on making 2009 a great year for CEVO and our customers!

Source: CEVO