Gambling Addict Embezzles From County, Then Goes Gambling

Ex-Supervisor Uses Public Funds For Gambling, Apologizes; Then Goes Gambling

Gambling addiction isn't dead in Shirakawa.

By Chris Roberts | Friday, Apr 12, 2013

A 2012 Santa Clara Board of Supervisors meeting with then-Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. Shirakawa pleaded guilty to using $130,000 of public and campaign cash to gamble -- then went gambling a few days later.

Just a few days after former Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. surrendered to authorities for using public funds to feed his gambling addiction, he could be found in a familiar place.

That would be Thunder Valley Casino near Sacramento where he was gambling, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

County Supervisor Resigns, Admits Depression, Addiction

Shirakawa, 51, pleaded guilty to 12 criminal counts and admitted being a gambling addict -- an addiction that led to him using $130,000 of campaign cash as well as public dollars in casinos and golf courses, the newspaper reported.

Former Santa Clara County Supervisor Pleads Guilty

He was arrested March 1; on March 4 he lost $200 but was comped a $111.50 dinner at Thunder

Valley's High Steaks eatery, the newspaper reported.

Shirakawa is set to be sentenced for his earlier pleas on April 30.

Shirakawa admitted as early as 1995 in public that he had "the fever,"; i.e. a gambling addiction, the newspaper reported.

 

Prosecutors have asked for a year in jail for the ex-politician.

He declined to comment to the newspaper on his most-recent game of chance.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Ex-Supervisor-Uses-Public-Funds-For-Gambling-Apologizes-Then-Goes-Gambling-202748761.html

Thunder Valley Casino Murder Victim Never Found

Crime Q&A

Remember the woman who was at Thunder Valley Casino and disappeared? Seen on videotape gaming, then leaving the casino and seen in parking lot accompanied by a man who later was charged and incarcerated. Was that woman's body ever found?
– Shirl, Sacramento

The body of 27-year-old Christie Wilson, who disappeared from the Thunder Valley Casino near Lincoln Oct. 5, 2005, has not been found.

A jury was convinced that Mario Flavio Garcia killed her and convicted him of first-degree murder in 2007.

Casino cameras showed Garcia and Wilson gambling together the night of Oct. 4, 2005, and showed them walking toward the parking lot at 1:15 a.m. Oct. 5.

According to stories in The Bee, Placer County sheriff's detectives arrested Garcia after finding hair follicles with Wilson's DNA in and on his car. Later, tiny blood spots matching Wilson's DNA were found on a back seat.

Garcia, a former Auburn resident, was sentenced to 59 years to life in prison and is incarcerated at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran.