Gambling Addiction

Below is another sad story of a law abiding citizen who got 'hooked' by a Predatory Industry whose businesss model is dependent on Addiction. When 10% of Patrons provide 90% of the profits, can it be called anything other than Predatory?

Gambling addiction landed former Sherrard village clerk to Decatur prison at age 75

DECATUR - The first time she stole, she planned to pay it back.

"It was easy for me to do because I was in charge of the books," said Marilyn Davis, from her wheelchair at Decatur Correctional Center.

Stealing was easy, but prison life is hard for a 75-year-old who's filled with arthritis and shame.

Davis is scheduled for release in 10 months. She is expected to serve 18 months of a four-year sentence for embezzling $100,000 from the village of Sherrard, where she worked as town clerk for 40 years. Sherrard is in Mercer County, about 20 miles south of the Quad-Cities.

Auditors said Davis took between $200,000 and $250,000 from the town of 700. Some of it paid bills. Most of it went into slot machines at Quad-Cities casinos.

Prison officials "hand-picked" roommates for her after her transfer from Dwight Correctional Center to Decatur in January. She arrived in Decatur weighing 84 pounds and with a gash on her head from a fall she took in the infirmary.

"They're lifesavers," Davis said of roommates Madeline and Chrissy. "My hands don't work, so Madeline helps me get dressed, gets my shower ready and makes my bed. She takes real good care of me."

With eight months behind her and 10 more to go, Davis worries about two things: Staying in prison and going home.

Why she did it

There were always three blank checks, already signed, in Davis' books for the village of Sherrard.

The mayor signed them so they would be available to the clerk if something came up.

"I'd see those signed checks in the books, and that's what happened," she said. "In 2003, I'd really backed myself into a corner. I had $36,000 in hospital bills from when my husband passed, and I had a heck of a time with bills. I was living on credit cards."

She saw a way out with the casinos.

"The first time I gambled, I took $50 to the Isle of Capri," she said. "I put $20 in a slot machine and won $2,500. The same thing happened the second time. That was it for me.

"I still dream I'm sitting at a slot machine. I wish I didn't, but I do."

Scott Damiani, executive director of the Outreach Foundation for Problem and Compulsive Gambling in Downers Grove, said Davis' story is, sadly, not unique.

"It's very common, in fact," he said. "A senior loses a loved one or feels the need to be around people, and it's a case of going to find a place to escape. That's what it's all about. You start out going occasionally, and what it does is just escalate."

Davis needed help getting to the casinos. She stopped driving several years ago, because she is blind in one eye, and her arthritic hands cannot properly grip a steering wheel. Every Saturday and each Wednesday afternoon, when the Sherrard Village Hall closed early, she found a way.

"I'd bribe my son to take me to the boats," she said. "He played video poker, and I played the slots, and he wouldn't see me writing checks. I got paid on Mondays, so I'd rush to the bank to cover the checks I'd written. But then my paychecks were gone."

She didn't tell her kids how much she was losing, and Damiani said that is common, too.

"The families often have no idea," he said. "After the winning stage comes the losing stage. These are the reasons the suicide rate for gambling addicts is three to four times higher than for drug addicts and alcoholics. Gamblers were able to keep it a secret."

One of Davis' two daughters, Mindy Finch of Sherrard, said she initially was pleased that her brother was taking her mom to the boats.

"I thought it was good for her to get out and to be around people," she said.

Davis said she had the support of the whole family.

"On birthdays, my kids would send me money to go to the boats," Davis said. "For me, though, there was horrible shame in gambling. I hid that from my kids. I won't even take some medicines, because I'm afraid of getting addicted, and here I was, addicted to gambling."

The stealing continued, though there were months when she didn't take any money.

"I'd stop for maybe two months," she said. "After two months, I was back at it again. The temptation was great. That's where some of my shame is. At my age, I should know better."

In addition to being widows who enjoy the social aspect of the casinos, women gamblers have other temptations, Damiani said.

"They're often the people in control of the money," he said. "Once you're addicted to it, it's really, really difficult to stop."

After five years of stealing from the town she said she loves, Davis found a company to audit Sherrard's books.

Asked why she did so, given that the audit was sure to uncover her crimes, she shrugged.

"It was a big relief when she got caught," Finch said of her mother. "We knew something was wrong, because she was losing so much weight and just lying around on the couch."

Mayor Terry Ayers, whom Davis encouraged to run for office, went to see her on a Friday morning in September 2008, along with a police officer.

"She told the investigator, 'I'm glad you finally caught me,' or something to that effect," said Greg McHugh, Mercer County state's attorney.

"They said they wanted to talk to me and, of course, I knew what it was," Davis said. "I feel so bad for deceiving him (Ayers). I loved my job before I messed it up."

'They all call me Grandma'

Davis' twisted hands and fingers cannot grip the wheels of a wheelchair, so she moves it with her feet.

Other inmates take care of her personal needs, even escorting her to the line for medication, because she cannot grasp the 12 to 17 pills she takes each day. She has rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and is blind in one eye.

She held up one hand and poked at her thumb, which flopped as if unattached.

"I think I broke it when I fell at Dwight," she said.

Prison officials said Davis was moved to Decatur because it is handicapped-accessible and can better accommodate her needs.

Before the move, Davis' children and grandchildren said she was being neglected.

Her public defender, Mike Darrow, filed a motion in Mercer County Court early this year, asking that Davis be allowed to serve the remainder of her sentence under home confinement. Prison, he argued, was too great a hardship on a woman of her age and in her physical condition.

In April, Mercer County Circuit Court Judge James Conway rejected the request, saying, "She did the crime, so she needs to do the time."

Though Davis said she is much more comfortable and is getting better care at Decatur, her health continues to decline.

"Two years ago, I was still walking, and I had it made," Davis said. "My house is right across the street from city hall, so I never had to miss a day of work."

She said she understands why people in Sherrard are angry at her. She is angry with herself, but she did good things for the people, too, she said, during the four decades she clerked.

"I was a notary," she said. "If somebody had a car deal going on a Sunday, they'd come and get me. They would call me on vacation. I remember one time when a squad car was wrecked and another time when there was a problem with the building. If somebody couldn't pay a water bill, I'd find a way to help. A couple of times, men left their billfolds on the counter in my office, and I jumped in the car and ran them out to them."

It is possible the people of Sherrard will get back some of the money Davis stole, McHugh said, if officials decide to go after her house across from their village hall.

"There's a lien on her home, and the village would have to foreclose on the lien," he said. "They also have the right to sue her, but I know there's a mortgage and outstanding taxes on the home. It's worth much, much less than the $100,000."

One of her two sons still lives in the home, and her children send her enough money to buy treats now and then from the prison commissary. But she has been warned by prison staff that she should not keep giving most of her goodies to other inmates.

"Everybody in the unit calls me Grandma," Davis said. "Well, one 61-year-old called me Grandma, and I said, 'That's pushing it.' "

"The girls wanted to give me corn rows in my hair once, and I said that was pushing it, too.

"I'll never forget them. They take good care of me."

The benefits are mutual.

"She gives some of the ladies purpose," Assistant Warden Sheryl Thompson said.

Davis has a fondness for many of the correctional officers, too.

"There's one by the name of Sarver who is just extremely nice," she said. "I figure he must have a grandma. They kid me, too. They say, 'Watch her. She's a troublemaker.' There are some real sweethearts working here."

10 more months

Though she is known to many inmates as Grandma, Davis has real grandchildren of her own.

"My little grandkids in Indiana think I'm in a nursing home," she said. "When I talk to them on the phone, they say, 'I hope you feel better.' "

Asked what she would like people to know about her, she took a long moment to think.

Before she pleaded guilty to embezzlement, Davis' only legal infraction was a ticket for driving without a seat belt.

"I can't say anymore that I'm honest," she said. "I'm very devoted to my family. That is my life. I helped raise my grandchildren. I always cared about people.

"I'm terribly, terribly ashamed of myself for what I did."

Her family, including two daughters and two sons, is what Davis misses the most in prison. All of her phone calls have to be made collect, and some confusion over a cell phone account prevented her from talking to one of her sons for several months.

"That was difficult, and it felt great to finally talk to him," she said. "I felt like my life isn't over."

Davis' death is one of Finch's biggest worries.

"I live in fear of the phone ringing, and someone telling me my mother has passed away," she said.

Davis shares the worry.

"I want to die at home with my kids," she said, raising her eyeglasses to wipe away tears.

As much as she dreads another 10 months in prison, she doesn't expect her homecoming to be an outright celebration.

"I still love my town," she said. "But I guess I'm too ashamed of myself to face them."