Woman Jailed For Stealing $427K From Thompson Auto In Doylestown To Play Bingo

The former office manager of the Thompson Organization in Doylestown was sent Thursday to the Bucks County Correctional Facility for stealing more than $427,000 from her employer over a 10-year period.

Kelley M. Lutz, 49, of Silverdale, was sentenced by Bucks County Senior Judge Albert J. Cepparulo to serve one to two years, plus a concurrent 10 years of probation.

Cepparulo also ordered Lutz to pay $427,019 the Thompson Organization, owners of several area auto dealerships, during her probation. Lutz was the business’s longtime office manager in Doylestown.

She blamed an addiction to high-end bingo games for the thefts. Investigators found no evidence that she spent the stolen money on anything but bingo, which Lutz attended at volunteer fire companies or other charitable organizations several times each week.

Lutz pleaded guilty on November 7 to a long list of felony theft-related charges. She admitted that from February 2006 to January 2016, she consistently stole money from her employer by a variety of means, and then altered computer records to cover her tracks.

Deputy District Attorney Marc Furber said Lutz stole $166,540 by creating 302 fraudulent checks made out to cash. Another 559 instances were identified in which Lutz stole $260,479 by withholding or skimming money from bank deposits or stealing money from petty cash reserves.

Furber noted that Lutz committed the thefts despite drawing a substantial salary that ranged from $77,000 to $93,000 over the course of her employment as office manager.

“This is not someone who had a good reason” to steal, Furber said of Lutz’s gambling addiction. “It was a bad reason to do a very bad thing.”

Lutz had worked for Thompson since 1989, and had been office manager since 1994. She had multiple accounting, financial and human resources duties that gave her access to Thompson’s computerized systems for financial records and transactions, enabling her to create false entries to cover her crimes.

Not until Lutz was terminated in January 2016 for an unrelated matter did her thefts come to light, when a senior manager reviewed paperwork that was left on her desk.

“We soon realized a despicable crime was committed by someone we had trusted to oversee our family-run business for many years,” wrote John H. Thompson, owner of the Thompson Organization, in a victim impact statement submitted to Cepparulo. “In the year prior to Mrs. Lutz’s termination, it was discovered that she had stolen over $150,000 in one year.”

Thompson said the damage from Lutz’s thefts went beyond monetary loss, saying she had damaged the reputation of his business, and had cast suspicion on subordinates who unwittingly cashed some of the phony checks that Lutz wrote.

“After a front-page article was published in the local newspaper, residents and business people in the Doylestown community began to question our ability to run a business and even questioned whether we were selling the business,” Thompson wrote. “Words can’t describe the anger and betrayal my family and I and so many of our employees feel.”

Lutz acknowledged that in 2007, she had been confronted by a senior manager after $30,000 went missing. She agreed to make restitution, borrowed the funds from her 401(k) retirement plan, and was able to keep her job.

Furber noted that despite that second chance, Lutz continued to steal even during the time she was repaying that money. She also failed to seek help for her gambling addiction until her arrest this year, despite having an aunt who works as an addictions counselor.

Lutz said that, contrary to common perceptions of bingo, it is possible to lose in excess of $1,000 a night in higher-end games. She described her addiction as a mix of giddy anticipation beforehand and crushing depression after a losing night.

“When I knew I was going to play bingo, I got a natural high,” she said, but then got “seriously depressed” after a bad night. She rationalized that she could return the money she stole once she had a few big wins.

“That’s what I intended to do when I hit it big,” she said.

“But you never hit it big,” defense attorney Andrew Schneider said.

“No,” Lutz replied.

Friends and family, including Lutz’s husband, Shawn, said they knew she played bingo a lot, but never realized the amount of money involved. Several described her as a generous, compassionate person.

“She’s ashamed, devastated, remorseful,” Shawn Lutz said. “She wants to make this right.”

Kelley Lutz said that after she was arrested, she began seeing a therapist for her gambling addiction and joined Gamblers Anonymous.

“They help me to see what I was, and what I’ve done, and how to become a whole person without gambling,” she said. “I have to live with the guilt of what I have done to my family, my place of employment, and my friends.”

Under questioning by Furber, Lutz said she and her husband own their residence, a shore house in New Jersey and a boat, but had made no effort to liquidate any of those assets to start paying restitution. Her husband submitted $2,000 today, calling it “all I could afford.”

Schneider called Lutz “a good woman who has done a bad thing. What is this case about? This case is about an illness.”

Lutz “has learned her lesson,” Schneider said, asking Cepparulo to sentence her to probation. “There is nothing more shameful than being arrested for a crime and having a criminal record.”

Cepparulo said Lutz’s crimes cannot be dismissed as a one-time mistake by a first-time offender.

“There is no mistake when it comes to theft,” the judge said. “Theft is an intentional act” that Lutz committed “on a repeated basis, over time – time and time again.”

Cepparulo rebuked her for not seeking help sooner, saying “it’s hard for me to understand how you ended up squandering $427,000, an average of $42,000 per year, playing bingo. That’s an astounding amount of money.”

Cepparulo said he would approve making Lutz eligible for intermediate punishment such as house arrest or work release. Schneider said that Lutz had already been screened and approved for house arrest.

The case was investigated by Bucks County Detective Eric Landamia and Doylestown Township Detective Anthony Breslau.

(Information provided by the Bucks County Office of the District Attorney, and is assumed accurate.)

http://newhopefreepress.com/2016/12/29/woman-jailed-for-stealing-427k-from-thompson-auto-in-doylestown-to-play-bingo/

FEDERAL COURT 

Bank manager spent $1 million in embezzled money on online gambling

MATTHEW LANE • NOV 4, 2016 AT 3:16 PM

mlane@timesnews.net

GREENEVILLE — A former bank manager has agreed to plead guilty to federal tax evasion charges after he embezzled nearly $1 million from various accounts and lost the money through online gambling websites.

Kenneth Miller agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Greeneville last month to a five-count information charging him with theft by a bank officer/employee and four counts of tax evasion.

Miller faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine on the theft charge and five years in prison and a $100,000 fine on the tax evasion charges. A change of plea hearing is scheduled for Nov. 28.

The charges are in connection to Miller’s embezzlement of nearly $1 million while he worked as the manager of a First Tennessee Bank location in Greeneville. Prosecutors say the embezzlement took place from April 2012 to February 2016.

According to court records, Miller started working at First Tennessee Bank in May 2000 and moved to various branches within the company until finally becoming the Financial Center Manager of the company’s Greeneville Main Street location.

First Tennessee fired Miller in February once the embezzlement was discovered.

Prosecutors say Miller misapplied $1.16 million from numerous savings accounts, certificates of deposit, lines of credit and individual retirement accounts. However, not all of the money was obtained by Miller.

Court records show Miller moved some of the money between accounts to conceal earlier misapplications of funds. Shortly after discovering the loss, First Tennessee reimbursed most of the losses sustained by account holders, court records state.

As far as personally benefiting from the embezzlement, prosecutors say Miller took just over $967,000, which was lost or spent at online gambling sites DraftKings and FanDuel.

In addition to the embezzlement, Miller filed false federal tax returns from 2012 through 2015, evading approximately $161,000 in federal income taxes. The total loss caused by Miller’s actions was $1.08 million, court records state.

Prosecutors are seeking an $883,000 judgment against Miller.

Once the story of Miller’s embezzlement broke earlier this year, his wife, Erica, filed two lawsuits in Greene County Chancery Court against DraftKings and FanDuel seeking the recovery of gambling losses. Erica Miller claims in her lawsuits that the DraftKings and FanDuel websites violate Tennessee gambling laws.

The two cases were transferred to federal court earlier this year, but have since been remanded to state court.

http://www.timesnews.net/Law-Enforcement/2016/11/04/Local-bank-manager-spent-1-million-in-embezzled-money-for-online-gambling

Hollywood Casino, Pennsylvania: Middletown woman pleads guilty to embezzling $535,000

Middletown woman pleads guilty to embezzling $535,000

POSTED 2:31 PM, OCTOBER 21, 2016, BY FOX43, UPDATED AT 02:33PM, OCTOBER 21, 2016

HARRISBURG, PA. — A Middletown woman pled guilty to embezzling over a half-million dollars in stolen insurance funds.  Diane M. Fabian, 66, was an employee of Wolf Strite Insurance Agency, and later Don Jacobs Insurance Services, Inc.  Starting in at least 2008, she began forging customer names on company checks and would deposit the funds to her own account.  To get the checks, she would inform the company that a client had been overbilled or that a refund was due – when in fact it was not.  In other instances, insurance companies such as Liberty Mutual would issue a refund check, but Fabian would forge the customer’s name, deposit the check and keep the money.

Fabian pleaded guilty Thursday to 76 charges of forgery, theft by deception, and theft by failure to make required disposition, scheming at least $535,000 in stolen insurance funds.

 Fabian admitted the scheme to detectives.  She said that she was addicted to gambling, and spent much of the money at Hollywood Casino.  She has since self-excluded herself from the casino.  Most of the charges are third-degree felonies, each of which carries a 7-year statutory maximum.  Fabian is set to be sentenced by the Hon. John F. Cherry on January 5, 2017.  Lower Paxton Detective James Glucksman worked on this case, as did the Insurance Department of Pennsylvania, and prosecutors David Wilson and A.J. Jarbola.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania’s helpline (800) 848-1880 or the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs’ Gambling Addiction Hotline (877) 565-2112. For more information regarding compulsive and problem gambling, please visit http://gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov/?p=66

SOURCE: Dauphin County District Attorney

http://fox43.com/2016/10/21/middletown-woman-pleads-guilty-to-embezzling-535000/

Former South Amherst clerk gets prison, probation for $677,000 theft

Brad Dicken| The Chronicle-Telegram

Published on Sept. 2, 2016

ELYRIA — South Amherst residents were so angry about former village Clerk/Treasurer Kim Green’s theft of $677,000 in village funds that some considered desecrating her parents’ graves, Mayor Dave Leshinski said shortly before Green was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs Thursday.

“You are not welcome in this town. People wanted to desecrate your parents’ graves,” Leshinski said, adding that he had discouraged that or following through on other threats against Green and her property.

Green, 54, hung her head through most of the hearing before county Common Pleas Judge James Miraldi, who sentenced her to six months in the Lorain County Jail with work release privileges so she can earn money to make partial restitution to the village.

Miraldi, who also placed Green on five years of probation, warned her that if she didn’t behave and work to repay the money she stole, he would send her to prison for six years.

Based on money and winning Ohio Lottery tickets seized by investigators, the sale of her family’s home and a monthly payment plan that Green and her husband, former Village Councilman John Green, have agreed to, she will pay back more than $100,000 over the next five years, defense attorney Jack Bradley said.

John Green wasn’t charged in connection with the money his wife stole from the village, and police have previously said they hadn’t found any evidence linking him to her crimes.

Kim Green was appointed clerk/treasurer in 2010 and won a full term in 2012. She resigned in April 2015 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of theft, theft in office and tampering with records.

On Thursday, Green blamed a gambling addiction for her decision to take the village’s money, which prosecutors said she spent on herself and Ohio Lottery tickets, many of which she purchased at the gas station in the village where she also worked.

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost has said it appeared Green wrote checks to herself and then cashed them. An internal investigation by Yost’s office determined the checks Green wrote to herself should have set off alarms among his staff and two of his workers were fired over the matter. A third was demoted.

Leshinski told Green the money she stole was “used for your own personal pleasure and gratification” without thinking about the impact on the village.

“The theft has left the people bewildered, upset and very angry,” he said.

Green said she is now receiving therapy, is a member of a Gamblers Anonymous group in Cuyahoga County and working to create a chapter of the organization in Lorain County.

Green said she wanted to take responsibility for her actions.

“I am so sorry,” she told Miraldi. “Three words that mean so much and, in my case, not enough.”

Green said she hadn’t realized she was depressed and suffering from an addiction to gambling until it was too late.

“I have broken a trust I worked my whole life to earn,” she said.

Leshinski and Village Councilwoman Donna Houck both said that the missing money had harmed the village. Houck also expressed skepticism that Green would make good on her pledge to repay all the money she stole.

Bradley said Green is earning $9 an hour at her current job, but is hoping for a raise to $10 per hour soon.

http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/Local-News/2016/09/02/Former-South-Amherst-clerk-gets-prison-probation-for-677-000-theft.html

West Virginia: Lawsuit against Mountaineer dismissed

Lawsuit against Mountaineer dismissed

AUG 21, 2016

STEPHEN HUBA

WHEELING — A judge has dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit that touched on the question of whether casinos and slot machine manufacturers have a responsibility to prevent compulsive gambling by patrons.

The lawsuit against Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort, filed by the widow of Scott Stevens in 2014, claimed the Hancock County casino had a duty to intervene in the compulsive gambling habits that allegedly drove him to suicide in August 2012.

U.S. District Court Judge Frederick P. Stamp Jr.’s order of dismissal came nearly four years to the date after Stevens fatally shot himself in a Jefferson County park — and a day after Stacy Stevens voluntarily withdrew her case.

Her attorney, James G. Bordas Jr. of Wheeling, could not be reached for comment. Mountaineer routinely does not comment on litigation.

The lawsuit claimed that, from 2007 to the day he died, Stevens was a regular patron at Mountaineer, where he played the slot machines and, over time, became hopelessly addicted to gambling.

To support his habit, he embezzled more than $7 million from his workplace, where he was chief financial officer, and emptied his family’s savings, retirement account and his children’s college funds, the lawsuit said.

Even after an IRS audit discovered the embezzlement and Stevens was fired, he continued playing the slot machines at Mountaineer for 10 more months, never telling his wife about his secret life as he dragged his family deeper into debt, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also named as a defendant Reno, Nev.-based slot machine manufacturer International Game Technology Inc. and former Mountaineer parent company, MTR Gaming Group. Its main allegation was that the IGT slot machines used at Mountaineer are“inherently dangerous” and are designed to keep people playing to the point where they can’t stop.

“The products were not a passive medium through which gamblers enacted a pre-existing addiction but, rather, an interactive force that eroded players’ capacity to make reasoned decisions,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also accused IGT of intentionally concealing from patrons algorithms and other design features that govern slot machines’ win-loss functions — features that have been written about in books such as “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas” by MIT anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull.

“No other form of gambling is known to manipulate the human mind as much as slot machines,” the lawsuit said. “Playing these machines produces in numerous gamblers a trance-like state in which their ability to make rational decisions is eroded. Players become addicted to a dissociated mental state of diminished self-awareness and the suspension of a sense of time, money value and one’s immediate surroundings.”

Ultimately, the lawsuit stalled on the question of whether casinos and slot machine suppliers have a “duty of care” to protect patrons from compulsive gambling.

Stamp put the question to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in order to address motions filed by the defendants to dismiss the case. Justice Brent D. Benjamin, who wrote the opinion, concluded that no duty of care exists under West Virginia law and, therefore, a lawsuit claiming negligence could not be sustained.

Benjamin cited similar cases in Indiana and New Jersey in which courts found that the state’s prerogative in regulating the gaming industry superseded any responsibility on the part of casinos and vendors.

In the case of West Virginia, racetrack casinos such as Mountaineer are already heavily regulated by the West Virginia Lottery Commission, operating under strict rules set by the state Legislature.

“The hardware and software components of the (slot) machines are required to precisely comport with statutory parameters, and ‘each video lottery terminal approved for placement at a licensed racetrack must conform to the exact specifications of the video lottery terminal prototype tested and approved by the commission,'” Benjamin said, citing the West Virginia Code.

What’s more, Benjamin said the state sets aside $150,000-$500,000 annually for its Compulsive Gambling Treatment Fund and maintains an exclusion list whereby patrons with a compulsive gambling disorder can be prevented, either voluntarily or involuntarily, from entering casino premises.

Because legal gambling is so entwined with the state, the duty of care rests with the Legislature not the private sector, Benjamin concluded.

“State law regulates virtually every facet of casino gambling and its potential impact upon the public,” he said. “The state has so thoroughly integrated itself into the provision and operation of the (slot) machines on every level … that its involvement cannot readily be divorced from that of its licensees and key suppliers.”

Stamp said the supreme court’s ruling was “dispositive,”meaning it settled the issue.

http://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/local-news/2016/08/lawsuit-against-mountaineer-dismissed/

If a Tiverton casino opens, there needs to be a plan for social justice

Guest Opinion: If a Tiverton casino opens, there needs to be a plan for social justice be a plan for social justice

An artist's rendering of the proposed 85,000-square-foot Tiverton casino. It would have 1,000 video lottery terminals and 32 table games. It would be attached to an 84-room hotel.

Drawing Courtesy of Twin River Management Group

Friday 

Posted Aug 12,2016

As a priest, pastor and President of the Tiverton Interfaith Clergy Group opposing the expansion of gambling in Rhode Island in general and the placement of a casino in Tiverton specifically, I asked the Tiverton Planning Board to begin working on a social plan. If there must be a casino placed in Tiverton, then there must be a social plan for the sake of social justice. I am asking the Planning Board to consider developing, approving and submitting a social plan to the Tiverton Town Council, as soon as possible, in the event Tiverton voters approve the casino referendum on Election Day, Nov. 8, a mere 90 days away.

The Rev. John E. Higginbotham

As a priest, pastor and President of the Tiverton Interfaith Clergy Group opposing the expansion of gambling in Rhode Island in general and the placement of a casino in Tiverton specifically, I asked the Tiverton Planning Board to begin working on a social plan. If there must be a casino placed in Tiverton, then there must be a social plan for the sake of social justice. I am asking the Planning Board to consider developing, approving and submitting a social plan to the Tiverton Town Council, as soon as possible, in the event Tiverton voters approve the casino referendum on Election Day, Nov. 8, a mere 90 days away.

A social plan will help facilitate and help to provide Tiverton residents who become addicted to casino gambling with access to resources they will need when they, and their families, suffer the financial fallout from a gambling addiction as a direct result of a casino coming into this town. Some of the resources needed would include psychiatric treatment for gamblers suffering from this addiction, legal resources when criminal activity, eviction, bankruptcy or utility shut offs are involved. There should be access to emergency financial resources such as low- interest rate loans providing residents with food, utility payments, rent money to prevent eviction and emergency mortgage payments to prevent foreclosure. Employment assistance must be made available when the gambler has been terminated as a direct result of their gambling addiction.

These resources are all about survival. We all know our finances go much deeper than basic survival. However, a gambling addiction does not discern between disposable income and survival income. The addiction just knows that money is the fuel needed for the high the “action” gives the gambler when playing slot machines or any of the table games in the casino. This addiction not only takes away the luxury of disposable income from the gambler, a gambling addiction takes away all the money an addicted gambler can get their hands on.

A casino can easily create a gambling addiction in a model citizen’s life. For example, a Tiverton resident goes into this proposed casino one night just for the fun of it to play the slots and winds up a year or two later with a full blown gambling addiction. The person becomes an active gambler and craves the excitement of the “action” playing the slots only to end up broke, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, maxing out the credit cards at the ATM machine, which the casino so conveniently provides. Finally, when there is nothing left but toxic shame, bankruptcy becomes a way out for many gamblers.

Unfortunately, there is embezzlement from the gambler’s place of employment just to keep gambling because the addiction whispers “Keep playing. You can hit it big. You can save the house and the car and the 401(k) and replace the kid’s college tuition money that you have been saving since birth. You can save face. You can be a hero and still have fun.” That’s a gambling addiction controlling what was a model life, a good life, a healthy life. In the end, a person with a chronic gambling addiction can end up ruining their life and the life of their family and loved ones who depend upon them for their survival. In chronic cases they could end up in bankruptcy court or doing 3-to-5 years in prison for embezzlement or even worse taking their own lives. It’s not just about your money; it’s about your life. In this case, it is the life of this beautiful town.

I know the Tiverton Town Council and many proponents of the casino say, “This is just hyperbole. These are just scare tactics. This is just an over exaggeration of the facts.” When asked about the addiction issue, casino executives usually point out that most people don’t have a gambling problem, which is true. Just over 1 percent of the population is considered to be compulsive gamblers, those with the most serious level of gambling addiction and another 3 percent to be problem gamblers, those folks with somewhat lesser levels of addiction.

However, as documented in the landmark Institute of American Values report “Why Casinos Matter” (www.americanvalues.org), multiple independent studies show that 35-50 percent of casino gambling revenues come from that 4 percent of the population who are collectively referred to in the gambling literature as “problem gamblers.”

This means that the casino industry’s very business model is dependent upon preying upon addicted gamblers. That is people with some level of gambling addiction and that up to half the money government obtains from casino gambling comes from exploiting addicted citizens and the people close to them. This is the basis of the argument that it is unethical for government to support and promote gambling. The bottom line: It is difficult to take seriously the casino industry’s claims that casinos do everything possible to identify, bar, and help addicted gamblers get treatment since most casinos would be hard pressed to stay in business if they lost 35-50 percent of their revenue.

If the voters approve the referendum, then this town must be prepared for the social fall out. You see, the town is our people. We have a responsibility to our people. This is a matter of social justice. As an advisory body to the Town Council, the Planning Board has an obligation and a duty to at least plan for any eventuality, especially the placement of a casino in this beautiful New England village and to protect the people they serve from harm and when that harm is done, be there to help them. Otherwise, our town will be changed, and not for the better. Otherwise, there will be no peace in our town because there will be no justice. Otherwise, we are saying, I just don’t give a damn.

The Rev. John E. Higginbotham is president of The Tiverton Interfaith Clergy Group.


http://www.heraldnews.com/opinion/20160812/guest-opinion-if-tiverton-casino-opens-there-needs-to-be-plan-for-social-justice

Laurel woman sentences in Wells Fargo embezzlement case

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A former employee of Wells Fargo Bank in Billings who admitted to embezzling more than $36,000 from the bank has been sentenced to five years of supervised release.

The Billings Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/2aNMXLv ) that 38-year-old Sara Marie Clark, of Laurel, was sentenced in federal court Wednesday after pleading guilty to bank embezzlement.

Prosecutors say Clark stole for several months before bank officials discovered the thefts in September 2015 and fired her.

Clark has admitted to stealing the money and says she did it to fuel a gambling addiction.

In court Wednesday, she apologized for letting her co-workers down and told the judge that she’s seeking treatment for her gambling addiction and counseling.

___

Information from: The Billings Gazette,http://www.billingsgazette.com

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/laurel-woman-sentences-in-wells-fargo-embezzlement-case/article_fc154678-7ce1-5ac7-9e3b-dfbfffe0be1d.html

Bank robbery spotlights role of gambling in crime

Bank robbery spotlights role of gambling in crime

David Gutman , Staff Writer

August 7, 2016

Kerry Johnson

It is, admittedly, kind of a funny story.

A guy goes into a casino at 10 in the morning and starts playing blackjack. Maybe he hits a losing streak. A few hours later, he saves his seat at the table, leaves the casino, robs a bank, returns to the casino, regains his seat and starts gambling again with the stolen money.

That’s what Charleston police allege 52-year-old Kerry Johnson did last Tuesday, charging him with leaving the Mardi Gras Casino in Nitro to rob a bank in the South Hills neighborhood of Charleston.

The Kanawha County magistrate who arraigned Johnson after he was arrested, Ward Harshbarger, chuckled throughout the process, calling it one of the craziest cases he’d seen in 30-plus years on the bench.

But it’s not funny for Johnson, who told prosecutors he has a gambling problem, but said he did not rob the bank and has no recollection of the events they described. He faces 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted.

And, if the charges against him are true, he’s far from alone in resorting to crime to satisfy a gambling problem or addiction.

About 25 percent of the callers to the Problem Gamblers Help Network of West Virginia admit to having committed a crime in connection with their gambling, said Sheila Moran, the network’s communications director.

The most common crimes are stealing, embezzlement and writing bad checks, she said.

“When people have a gambling problem and they take money, most of the time they genuinely do not see it as stealing,” Moran said. “Their thinking is as soon as they get that next win, ‘I’m going to take it back.’”

Johnson’s alleged crime is certainly more extreme than most, but it’s far from the worst fallout from gambling addiction.

Scott Stevens was a regular patron of the Mountaineer Casino Racetrack near Wheeling. From 2007 to 2012, according to court records, Stevens regularly played slot machines at the casino, developing a gambling addiction.

To feed his addiction, court filings say, he embezzled more than $7 million from his employer before he was fired. He then spent his family’s savings, his retirement account and his children’s college funds at the casino, according to court records.

On Aug. 13, 2012, out of money and seemingly out of hope, Stevens sat down in a local park, called the police and shot himself.

His family sued the casino and the slot machine manufacturer, alleging that the features and algorithms of its slot machines are designed to cause a physiological change in the brain, fueling addiction.

The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled against Stevens’ family in June, finding the casino and manufacturer were not liable, largely because the state’s five casinos are so heavily regulated by the state that there is no duty under state law for them to protect gamblers from addiction.

“The state has plainly weighed the societal costs of the machines — specifically including their contribution to compulsive gambling and the potential consequences thereof — against their economic benefits,” Justice Brent Benjamin wrote for a unanimous court. “And it has nonetheless elected to make them available to the public.”

Gambling in West Virginia has brought in billions of dollars for the state, funding education, senior programs and state parks. It also funds the Problem Gamblers Help Network.

But the state’s five casinos, 1,500 locations to buy lottery tickets and more than 7,000 video lottery machines also have wrecked lives.

Moran recalls the first call she took when she joined the Problem Gamblers Help Network in 2003. It was from a woman who had embezzled $250,000 from the law firm she worked at so she could play bingo.

“The funny thing is, it’s people you would never think,” Moran said of the 12,000 people who have called for help with a gambling problem since the hotline opened in 2000.

About half the hotline’s callers are female, according to its annual report, and nearly 40 percent have more than $25,000 in gambling debt.

Moran talked about people who had bought their kids Christmas presents, then, desperate for gambling money, pawned the presents and re-wrapped the empty boxes.

While being arraigned, Johnson told the court that he owned his own business, made around $10,000 a month, but had no money to his name.

Charleston police said that when they arrived at Johnson’s house, following an anonymous tip, his girlfriend told them that he was sleeping inside and that the car in the driveway belonged to him.

“Usually the spouse has no idea,” Moran said. “It’s not uncommon for us to get a call from a husband or wife saying, ‘I just found out we are $50,000 in debt.’ It’s a vicious cycle.”

The Problem Gambler Help Network of West Virginia, which is free and confidential, can be reached at 1-800-gambler.

- See more at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20160807/GZ0118/160809642#sthash.BRYRHSZb.dpuf

Connecticut: Feds Want Embezzler Back In Prison After Gambling On Supervised Release

Probation officers said Patricia Baddeley Meehan almost immediately started gambling after being released from federal prison in August 2013.


Feds Want Embezzler Back In Prison After Gambling On Supervised Release

By Dave Altimari

A day after a federal judge decided not to revoke Patricia Baddeley Meehan's supervised release from prison in February of 2015 and warned her not to gamble, she was playing the slots at Foxwoods Resort Casino — a pattern authorities say of her continuing to gamble while free, winning more than $51,000 in the process.

Now the federal government is asking U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill to revoke her supervised release one month before it is supposed to end and put her back in federal prison for as long as 36 months. Baddeley Meehan, 50, will appear before Underhill on Thursday.

Federal authorities also are expected to ask the judge to order her to forfeit all of the money she won playing slot machines at Foxwoods while she was on probation.

Meehan was sentenced to 46 months in a federal prison in February 2010 after pleading guilty to two counts of mail fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. She admitted that, while employed as a paralegal at the Berman and Russo law firm in South Windsor, she had several credit card accounts in her name that she used for purchases and cash advances to fuel her gambling habit at various casino's.

Authorities said she stole at least $1.7 million from the law firm over a five-year period beginning in 2002.

Meehan was released from federal prison in August 2013 and began her 36 months on federal probation.

But probation officials said she almost immediately started gambling again, using her Foxwoods player card at least 10 times in 2014, according to a court document filed by her probation officer. During that time span she had jackpot winnings of $43,173, court records show.

Federal authorities tried to revoke her probation in February 2015 after she was arrested for stealing funds from a Glastonbury hair dresser where she was working as a receptionist. Underhill postponed doing anything regarding her probation while the state case was pending.

A day after her initial appearance on the revocation, she was at Foxwoods playing slot machines. She last used her player's card at Foxwoods on Feb. 13, 2015 – the day after appearing before Underhill.

But Meehan did not stop gambling. In an apparent effort to evade detection, she stopped using her player's card, according to court records.

Foxwoods did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Authorities only were able to determine she was still gambling because her lucky streak at the slots apparently continued. When a slots player wins more than $1,200 at a machine, they are required to cash out in person and present identification.

Casino records show that Meehan played the slots at least four times in March 2016, winning more than $7,000. Authorities also discovered a $1,600 payout to her in July 2015.

Overall federal authorities allege since she went on probation in 2013 Meehan has won more than $51,862 at the slots at Foxwoods.

As she was apparently winning at the casino, she was not paying down her debt as ordered by the court when she was sentenced. With fees and interest, the court ordered her to repay the law firm about $1.9 million. She has paid back only $8,021 of that, authorities said.

Meehan could face an additional 36 months in federal prison if Underhill determines she has violated the conditions of her release. Her supervised release is scheduled to end as of Aug. 29.

She also is currently facing state larceny charges for the theft from the Glastonbury shop. Court documents show she stole more than $40,000 in cash from The Image Company Hair Salon, where she worked from September 2013 until her termination on Sept. 29, 2014.

Meehan allegedly stole money from the register and the tip jar. She is free on a $75,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in state court again on Feb. 1.

http://www.courant.com/breaking-news/hc-ellington-woman-slot-winnings-revoked-20160720-story.html