Gambling Addiction

Woman admits Sands scam: Shoumin Chai blamed her crimes on addiction to gambling
The Associated Press
By Riley Yates
The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Apr. 13--Shoumin Chai once had a promising future. A law school graduate, she was hired by a New York firm with the promise of a $250,000-a-year job if she passed the bar, her defense attorney said.

Then, she went to Atlantic City with a couple of friends.

''My life stopped the first day I started gambling," Chai said Monday in Northampton County Court as she admitted to the latest in more than 15 years of casino-related crimes.

Chai will serve two to five years in state prison and five years of probation for tricking ATM users at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem into letting her into their bank accounts. The plea deal came as she was slated to face trial on 118 charges relating to a 13-hour stretch in June in which she bilked Sands patrons as they withdrew money.

Under Monday's plea, Chai admitted to three counts of access device fraud, three of identity theft and three of theft. One of the charges is a felony, the rest misdemeanors.

When she was charged, Chai, 55, of New York already had a 50-page rap sheet that included 13 felony convictions in New Jersey, where she was barred last year from casinos. Defense lawyer James Connell said her arrests began in 1992, and all involved gambling.

''She never did pass the bar. She never sat for the bar," said Connell, who called her story a warning to others. "She lost all of that because someone introduced her to a casino."

But one of her victims, Anthony Alfano, said Chai was blaming casinos for her own problems, and he noted that New Jersey courts gave her several chances but she continued to gamble and steal.

''People have gambling problems; she was blaming the casino for that," said Alfano, who had $400 taken from him. "I just think she was looking for someone to blame."



The plea and its agreed-upon sentence resolves a case that captured much public attention. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli had highlighted the criminal record of Chai, a Chinese national, and had criticized that she has not been deported.

In January, Chai withdrew an earlier guilty plea after Morganelli asked the court to sentence Chai to a maximum of 53 years in prison.

In her scam, police said Chai would approach people as they stood at a bank machine and pretend to help them withdraw their cash. Chai would get them to insert their cards twice, which creates two windows, and look over their shoulders as they typed in their password.

When the people left, she would use the second window to withdraw money from their accounts. Police said two dozen people were victims, but only three came forward. The charges she admitted to involved those three, from whom she stole $1,100.

Smith ordered her to pay them back, as well as pay a $2,500 fine. Under a state recidivism reduction program, she could become eligible for parole after 18 months, he said.

Chai said she hopes to return to New Jersey once released, so that she can get treatment. Connell said none is available in Pennsylvania despite laws mandating it.

''Do you think I can change?" Chai asked. "I don't know, that's honest. I don't know because I have 1/8an3/8 addiction."