Drugs at Parx

As Bill Kearney explains --

Casino security boxes are the same as bank safe deposit boxes. The reason casinos have them is to keep the gamblers and their cash especially the compulsive gamblers in their casinos. And like bank safe deposit boxes the money inside the boxes never gets reported to Uncle Sam. This is just one of many tools the casino operators use to seduce their prey.

Bensalem

Who put the pills in the leased security box point of contention at hearing

Eugene Yanelli

Eugene Yanelli in his Bucks County prison mug shot

Posted: Thursday, August 2, 2012

By Jo Ciavaglia Staff writerCalkins Media, Inc.

Posted on August 2, 2012

• 
  by Jo Ciavaglia

During an audit of inactive security boxes at Parx Casino, a manager discovered one containing more than 2,500 prescription painkillers and muscle relaxers.
That much the prosecution and defense attorneys agree on.
How the pills ended up in the locked box — and who they belong to — is another story, one that played out Wednesday before Bensalem District Judge Joseph Falcone at a preliminary hearing for a Philadelphia man facing felony drug charges.

In an objection-filled hearing, defense attorney Louis Busico argued that the Bucks County District
Attorney’s Office failed to definitively prove that the pills belonged to his client, Eugene Yanelli, 52, of Cinnamon Drive.

Prosecutor Ashley Stgonshek, though, said that her two witnesses — including the Parx manager who found the pills — say there is no way anyone other than Yanelli had access to the security box.

Following the brief hearing, Falcone held Yanelli for trial in Bucks County Court on drug possession and related charges. He remains free on 10 percent of $150,000 bail.

In April, Pennsylvania State Police arrested Yanelli after he showed up at the Street Road casino in Bensalem to access the leased security box, which is in his name, according to court records.

State Police Cpl. Brenda Armstrong testified that she received a report on Feb. 24 that a cashier manager for the Parx poker room opened the box and found four plastic baggies containing the white pills.

Armstrong confiscated the 2,668 pills and all but three tested positive as methadone, a powerful prescription painkiller. The others were a prescription muscle relaxer.

Armstrong discovered the box was leased to Yanelli and a signature card showed he signed the box in and out “numerous” times between February 2011 and July 2011, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Records showed the box was last signed out July 29, 2011, according to testimony and the affidavit. That’s seven months before the drugs were found and 11 months before Yanelli allegedly tried to access the box again.

Armstrong testified that there was no indication that anyone else — other than Yanelli — had access to the box before it was opened by the casino employee Feb. 24. Busico, though, demanded to know who authenticated and maintained the safety deposit records at the casino. The answer is Parx, Armstrong said.

Under cross examination, Armstrong acknowledged that she never met Yanelli until she observed him accessing the security box April 5 — the day he was arrested. She also acknowledged that the box had no drugs inside after they were removed Feb. 24.

She also testified there are no photos, witnesses or surveillance video evidence that showed Yanelli accessing the security box between Feb. 24 and April 5.

In her testimony, though, Armstrong said that Yanelli allegedly told her on April 5 that he was the last person to use the box, its contents were his and that he lost the key.

Cashier manager Robert Bradley, who found the pills, also testified that Yanelli’s security box was “dormant” between July 29, 2011, and April 5.

Bradley added that only two keys exist for each security box: the customer’s copy and one casino security has as a “backup” if a box is abandoned.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/crime/who-put-the-pills-in-the-leased-security-box-point/article_57e6a8a6-0735-5061-b695-9e425309609b.html#user-comment-area