Category: Gambling

Hot Contract: City bribery scandal tied to influential father and son

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, Jan. 26, 2005

Mark Sapperstein owns 113 W. Hamburg St., an 8,000-square-foot commercial building in Sharp-Leadenhall. The South Baltimore property, though devoid of signs, houses Allstate Boiler Service, a company owned by Gilbert Sapperstein, Mark’s 73-year-old father.

On Jan. 7, Allstate Boiler’s bookkeeper and office manager, Ida Marie Beran, pled guilty in a bribery case involving the company’s contract with the city to provide boiler services for municipal agencies. Also pleading guilty was Cecil Thrower, a city Department of Public Works employee since 1984 who worked at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Essex.

The case ties an established name in Baltimore’s business and political class—that of the Sapperstein family—to an ongoing criminal investigation.

In the statement of facts filed in the case, which was brought by the Office of the State Prosecutor, Beran and Thrower admitted that they conspired together to inflate invoices under Allstate Boiler’s contract with the city. While Thrower received somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000 for his part in the scheme, Beran received nothing—though her employer received “well over” $120,000 in excess payments as a result of the fraudulent bills, according to case documents.

The court record further explains that the conspiracy began in approximately 1998, at which point “Mr. Thrower was approached by the business owner who employed Ms. Beran [who] suggested to Mr. Thrower, ‘From time to time you could do something for us and perhaps we could do something [for] you.’ . . . [O]n more than one occasion, while acting at the instruction of and in concert with her employer, Ms. Beran prepared the envelopes containing cash for Thrower and provided them to other employees for delivery to Thrower.”

The case documents make no mention of Allstate Boiler or the Back River plant. Department of Public Works spokesman Robert Murrow, however, confirmed for City Paper that the city contract defrauded in the scheme has been held by Allstate for “like 20 years” to provide boiler work for any city agency that needs such services, and that the inflated bills were for work at Back River.

Allstate, which has been in business since 1965, also holds the boiler contract for the Baltimore City Public School System, according to city schools spokeswoman Vanessa Pyatt, though she says the contract is “set to expire in February.”

State prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh confirms that, “absolutely, this is a continuing investigation,” though he could “neither confirm nor deny” that the investigation continues to focus on Allstate Boiler or the Sappersteins. Rohrbaugh’s reticence aside, the record makes clear that Allstate, not Beran, benefited from the longstanding bribery scheme.

Mark Sapperstein acknowledged to City Paper that Allstate Boiler Service is located at his property, but he declined comment about the company or the bribery scandal. Gilbert Sapperstein did not return calls for comment left at Allstate, and contact information for Beran could not be found. Thrower’s phone at his West Baltimore residence has been disconnected.

Mark Sapperstein is a major player in local real-estate circles. He’s a partner in Silo Point, a $200 million proposal to convert a derelict grain elevator in Locust Point into a residential-retail development. On Jan. 13, the Baltimore Development Corp. awarded development rights to a city-owned parcel at Calvert and Lombard streets to Mark Sapperstein and his partners, who planned to turn it into a $71 million apartment complex called Cityscape. In 2002, he and his partners constructed a $13.5 million parking garage at Calvert and Lombard. Last spring, Sapperstein purchased 200 acres on North Point in eastern Baltimore County, where he plans to build luxury single-family homes on the Bauer Farm tract, where British troops in the War of 1812 marched en route to face Baltimore militias.

Gilbert and Mark Sapperstein, through their respective companies, have been active as donors to campaigns of elected officials. Since the fall of 1999, the two, along with Mark Sapperstein’s wife and several Sapperstein companies, gave at least $33,270 to the campaign committees of various elected officials.

Of the total, $9,650 went to Mayor Martin O’Malley (D), $8,000 went to Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith (D), and $4,250 went to Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R). Nearly all of the rest went to legislators representing Baltimore City and Baltimore County. At the federal level, Gilbert Sapperstein donated $250 each to U.S. Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-2nd District) and the Republican National Committee. Mark Sapperstein gave $1,000 to U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and $500 each to Ruppersberger, U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D), and Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor (R-7th District). Mark Sapperstein’s wife also gave $500 to Cantor.

Gilbert Sapperstein, according to several sources familiar with the workings of the Baltimore City Board of Liquor License Commissioners, is known as a go-to guy for prospective liquor licensees looking to break into the bar business. As a secured creditor for bars that fail, he assumes control of properties and liquor licenses and thus can procure opportunities for new entrepreneurs. According to liquor board documents, for example, Sapperstein was a secured creditor in a March 2003 license transfer for Mary’s Place in West Baltimore. Often, sources say, bar owners who are indebted to Sapperstein, who has been in the poker-machine business for years, agree to keep his poker machines in their establishments.

Both Sappersteins have had run-ins with the law for gambling-related charges. Gilbert, whose Star Coin Machine Co. is housed at 113 W. Hamburg with Allstate Boiler, faced 107 gambling-related charges in state courts in the 1980s and ’90s relating to Star Coin’s poker machines, though prosecutors declined to prosecute nearly all of them. In two cases, he received probation before judgment and was fined $1,475. Mark Sapperstein was charged with four gambling-related counts in 1989, though prosecutors chose not to pursue the cases. State records indicate that Mark Sapperstein’s poker-machine company, Mark’s Vending, has been inactive for more than a decade.

In 1984, Gilbert Sapperstein faced 18 housing-code violations for properties he owned in the city, receiving probation before judgment for 16 of them while prosecutors declined to pursue the remaining two charges. In 2003, Gilbert Sapperstein was charged with 10 housing-code violations in connection with a rowhouse he owned at 3203 Fleet St., receiving probation before judgment and $170 in fines. He sold the property shortly afterward.

Last April, Gilbert Sapperstein sold one of his properties in the Hollins Market neighborhood—the former Tom Thumb/Gypsy’s Café property, which in 2000 collapsed amid ill-conceived renovations. Two of his other properties in the same Southwest Baltimore neighborhood on Carrollton Avenue—one of which housed the Club Medusa, a hipsters’ after-hours social club, in the 1990s—are for sale. In July, he sold a property at 1600 W. Baltimore St., which houses a tavern called Good Times.

Currently for sale in the 800 block of West Cross Street is the property that housed Foul Ball Bar and Grille, which is owned by 2001 Eastern Ave. LLC, one of Gilbert Sapperstein’s companies. The Fells Point address the company is named after houses the Colonial Inn (owned by the same company). In Baltimore County, Gilbert Sapperstein owns 9727 Pulaski Highway, a large restaurant currently under renovation, and 2123-25 Sparrows Point Road, a strip club and bar.

The list of Sapperstein properties—many of them with liquor licenses attached—could go on and on.

In the 1990s, Mark and Gilbert Sapperstein were named, along with dozens of other parties, in a civil Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit brought by Donald D. Stone, a self-described surfer dude who alleged that the Sappersteins, their business partners and lawyers, and the law-enforcement bureaucracy in Maryland and Florida conspired to keep him from shedding light on their allegedly corrupt schemes. The case, which was filed separately in federal courts in Maryland and Florida, went nowhere. That outcome has not kept Stone from posting potentially libelous statements about the Sappersteins and others on the internet—though, so far, Stone says he has not been sued.

Part of Stone’s investigation into the Sappersteins focused on an Anne Arundel County deal for cell-phone towers that led to a lawsuit against Mark Sapperstein and his business partners by George and Mary Jane Chamberlain, who moved from Annapolis to New Hampshire before filing the complaint in 1999. The lawsuit, which has since been settled, alleged that Mark Sapperstein and two partners, both of whom also sat on the Anne Arundel County Economic Development Commission, stole the couple’s idea for dominating the communications-tower industry. The terms of the settlement are confidential, though the amount paid to the Chamberlains—$40,000—later leaked out. The lawsuit was filed shortly after Mark Sapperstein sold his communications-tower companies to a Florida company for $8 million in 1998.

Investigators are keeping mum about where they might be headed as they scour the books. Only time will tell whether the Sappersteins are in the clear or headed for more trouble as the case progresses.

 

Fouled Nests: The bust of a local poker club uncovers all sorts of messy connections

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, Nov. 23, 2005

When Baltimore City Police Sgt. Craig Gentile’s vice enforcement unit arrested 95 people for illegal gambling at the Owls Nest poker club in South Baltimore near M&T Bank Stadium on the evening of Nov. 2, it opened up a can of worms. Gentile, a veteran vice cop who routinely busts strip joints and nightspots, wouldn’t discuss the raid or the ongoing investigation of the Owls Nest for this article. But the public record, law-enforcement sources who spoke to City Paper on the condition of anonymity, and interviews with people close to the action at the Owls Nest and in the local poker world show that it is more than just a refurbished warehouse hosting charity gambling.

At its core, the Owls Nest is an illegal poker den with political, criminal, and law-enforcement ties.

The situation at the Owls Nest revolves first and foremost around the relationship between its principals—Joseph Anthony Cary, 50, and Gerald Curtis Dickens, 65—and Frank Darby Moran Sr., 76, a man dubbed by some as “the king of Arbutus.”

Cary and Dickens worked for Moran’s Arbutus-based charity gambling outfit, the Orioles Nest, before they split from him about a year ago and started the competing Owls Nest. Both private clubs are chapters of national fraternal organizations, similar to Elks or Moose lodges; the Owls have been around since 1904. Both the Owls and Orioles (nothing to do with the baseball team) have seen a renaissance in recent years. Chapters open their doors and people become members, often in order to gamble, ostensibly to raise money for charitable causes.

Despite Cary and Dickens’ split from Moran, ties remain. Cary’s Statewide Amusement vending company’s web site (www.statewideamusements.com) lists its address as 5404 East Drive in downtown Arbutus—a commercial property owned by Moran. It’s also the address of record for the Orioles Nest, which has operated at several locations since at least 2003.

Right around front, in the same strip of small businesses that houses the Orioles Nest, are the 12th Legislative District office of state Sen. Edward Kasemeyer, Del. Steven Deboy, and Del. James Malone, all Democrats.

Deboy is a retired Baltimore County cop who now works as a warrant investigator for the Howard County Police Department, while Malone is a lieutenant in the Baltimore County Fire Department.

Next door to the district office is Sport Cuts, a barbershop and clothing store owned by Andre Fozard, a federally convicted ecstasy dealer, former bail bondsman, and former strip-club co-owner on the Block in downtown Baltimore.

Delegates Malone and Deboy both say they do not know Fozard, but admit they were aware that the Orioles Nest was based out of the same small commercial building where their district office is located. Deboy denies being a member of the Orioles Nest.

“This is actually bizarre,” he says of the contention, made by City Paper’s sources, that he belonged to the private club, and suggests that anyone who says that he was a member may be engaging in “politics of destruction.” Malone, however, says “to be very, very honest, I don’t know whether I’m a member or not,” adding that he’d been to one Orioles Nest event, years ago. “I’d be very surprised if I was a member,” he says, adding, “I don’t gamble, period.”

Baltimore County Councilman Sam Moxley (D-1st District) was also named by City Paper’s sources as being an Orioles Nest member.

“No, not that I know of,” he responds. “I don’t think that I’ve ever been at any of their events, though I talked to [Frank] Moran about the situation [with the club]. He wanted to know about the gambling laws in the county.”

According to a law-enforcement source who has seen the Orioles Nest membership list, Fozard was a member of the organization. Several sources say Thomas Wayne Damron, a drug convict with a violent record, was too. So was Naylor Harrison, a convicted drug dealer who reportedly runs an asphalt paving business, according to Orioles Nest manager William Sachse and a law-enforcement source, though they say he was suspended for misbehaving in the club.

Fozard, Damron, and Harrison, law-enforcement sources say, have also been frequent habitués of the Owls Nest, which hired retired and off-duty cops from local jurisdictions as security for its tournaments. According to the police report of the Owls Nest raid, Barry Lee Boone, a retired Howard County cop, was armed and working for the tournament’s organizers that night, taking money from players.

Attempts to contact Fozard and Damron for comment were unsuccessful, but Harrison was reached. He denied ever being a member of either the Orioles or Owls, adding, “I stopped going to those places a long time ago.”

Though Moran, Cary, and Dickens could not be reached to interview them for this article, Orioles Nest manager William Sachse could. In a telephone interview, he explains that Cary and Moran go way back, through Cary’s vending-machine business, Statewide Amusements, which other associates of Cary, including John Leroy Long Jr., confirm.

“Joe Cary was pretty much raised and taken care of by Frank Moran,” Sachse says. “He taught Joe everything he needed to know in the vending business.”

The two also worked together running Moran’s club, the Orioles Nest, in a business park on Vero Road in Arbutus, a stone’s throw from the city line. Once inside the innocuous business-suite door, patrons paid a nominal fee—sometimes $20, sometimes $50, sometimes more, depending on the night’s event—to gamble, with the proceeds ostensibly going to various charities. But in late 2004, the club’s management experienced a falling out.

Sachse says Moran suspected that Orioles Nest money was being “misappropriated” by Cary and Dickens, and a “very ugly breakup” ensued. Sachse says Moran brought in Kimberly Acton, Sachse’s fiancé, late last year to clean up the Orioles Nest operations. After a couple of months, Sachse continues, Acton “got tired of the drama” of running the place, and he took over for her about eight months ago.

After the split, Sachse says, the “drama” continued, but he didn’t elaborate. A law-enforcement source familiar with the situation did. When Cary and Dickens left the Orioles Nest, the source says, they took a lot of the club’s assets with them.

“That night in November [2004], when the establishment closed, Joe Cary backed a truck up and cleaned the place out,” the source alleges. “He took TVs, poker chips, poker tables, food, soap dispensers, cigarette machines—everything except the pool table.” Cary and Dickens, the source continues, didn’t go far to start their own charity-gambling club—they set up in the next suite over.

Cary and Dickens “hung a cardboard sign up with the owls nest on it,” the source continues, adding that Moran purchased new amenities and kept his club open. “They were running side by side, wide open. [Cary and Dickens] were there through Christmas, maybe into January, while they were refurbishing the Worscester Street warehouse”—the location that was raided by Gentile and his squad on Nov. 2.

Meanwhile, the source says, Moran tried to roust Cary and Dickens from their location next door to his by starting his own Owls Nest chapter.

“There’s something with these fraternal organizations that two with the same name have to be at least six or eight miles apart,” the law-enforcement source says. “[Moran] was hell-bent on getting his own Owls Club established, because then [Cary and Dickens’] club couldn’t stay.”

While state records do not show Moran incorporating another Owls Club, a sign on a rear door to his East Drive property in Arbutus read, as of press time: “Owls Nest 4535—Private Club. The awning of Cary and Dickens’ establishment in South Baltimore announces it as, “Owls Club 4525.” (The door reads, “Owls Nest 4525.”)

After Moran’s falling out with Cary and Dickens, the source says, Baltimore County police paid a visit to the Orioles Nest: “The police said the Orioles Nest had all the proper paperwork and everything, but [that] it cannot play Texas hold-’em. They told Sachse and Kim [Acton], ‘This is it. It’s over.’”

Sachse confirmed the police visit to City Paper. Baltimore County Police Department spokesman Bill Toohey couldn’t confirm the visit but explains the county police practice involving charity poker events: “The gambling unit goes there, proactively, and reminds the operators of the county law—you can only hold [poker tournaments and other charitable gambling events] once a year, you can’t give cash as prizes—only merchandise of less than $1,000 in value—and everybody who plays has to be a [club] member.”

Shortly after the county police laid down the law to the Orioles Nest, both clubs’ promotional materials show that they relocated to Baltimore City.

According to a flier obtained by City Paper, Owls Nest 4525—Cary and Dickens’ outfit—opened in Baltimore City on Jan. 22, 2005, at 1800 Worscester St., sandwiched between the Russell Street overpass and the railroad tracks near M&T Bank Stadium.

“During the time I was with the Orioles Club, I had the pleasure of meeting many of you and invite you to come visit our new facility,” reads the flier, which bore a signature line for “Jerry,” secretary/treasurer of the Owls Nest. It politely adds that “we encourage you to continue to support the Orioles Club, as it is a fine organization.”

After Cary and Dickens split from Moran’s Orioles and started the Owls Nest, “we didn’t want our organization to be associated in any way with the Owls,” Sachse says, citing Moran’s bitterness over Cary’s disloyalty and the Owls’ indiscretion in holding widely publicized games on a regular basis.

“I mean,” Sachse adds incredulously, “they were advertising in the Sunpapers!”

The police report of the Owls Nest raid mentions an Oct. 18 advertisement in The Sun, which revealed that the Owls Nest was holding a nine-night tournament, and that winners would get seats at the World Poker Challenge tables on Nov. 13 at a Foxwoods, Conn., casino, airfare included.

Which is not to say the Orioles Nest didn’t continue hosting games of chance, ostensibly for charity. In April, Moran’s Orioles Nest distributed a flier, also obtained by City Paper: “We are proud to announce our grand re-opening at our new location . . . less than a mile from our old location.” The event’s date was April 14, and the address—where the club is still operating—was 2930 Washington Boulevard, Suite A, in Southwest Baltimore “next to the Warehouse bar and grill.”

The flier offered a “re-union promotion,” thanking members “for their patience and loyalty” by “giving away $50 in free chips with your first $100 buy-in to be used in any of our games. To the first sixty members to come to the window.”

The flier doesn’t mention any charities, though Sachse makes a point of saying that it would be “unethical if we don’t have a specific beneficiary” for the club’s fundraisers. “You need to deem one charity for that event, so to speak,” he explains, adding that “you don’t tell the charity what kind of event it was. Just give checks.”

By the time the Orioles Nest reopened in Morrell Park in April, the Owls Nest had a calendar of events reflecting twice-a-week poker tournaments. For April 29, the club’s calendar announced “A Special Tournament for Pi Kappa Phi,” a fraternity at UMBC.

According to a flier for the tournament, the event’s beneficiary was Push America, an organization “to serve persons with disabilities.” The cost to participants, the flier reads, was $55, plus $10 for “re-buys”—more chips if players run out. It adds: “All are invited.”

The charitable result of the fraternity tournament was $150, as reflected by a copy of an April 29 check made out by the Owls Nest to Pi Kappa Phi obtained by City Paper. If only three people paid to play, the $150 donation would have been recouped by the event.

In an effort to determine how many people paid to play, City Paper contacted the fraternity’s treasurer at the time, Chris Manger, and its vice “archon,” Greg Quigley. Both asked if they could call back. Neither did, and neither returned repeated subsequent messages.

Since the Baltimore Police Department busted the Owls Nest Nov. 2, the Orioles Nest has continued to host fundraising events. Baltimore City Councilman Edward Reisinger (D-10th District) tells City Paper that he’s not happy about it.

“After the Owls Nest gets busted, this Orioles Nest is still in operation!” Reisinger exclaims. “I called the police on that.” \

Sachse, though, tells City Paper that the Orioles Nest has stopped holding poker tournaments. Furthermore, he contends, the Orioles Nest has been run well and properly on the charity front since Cary and Dickens left.

“I’ll show you exactly where the money goes,” he says, offering to show City Paper the organization’s checkbook. “At the end of each quarter, monies are given out.” When asked if he would demonstrate how the Orioles Nest’s charitable giving has changed from when Cary and Dickens ran the show, Sachse balks: “I mean, if we get audited, that would be a skeleton in [our] closet. I’ll ask Frank [Moran] and get back to you.” He never did, and subsequent calls went unanswered as of press time.

There are other skeletons in the Orioles Nest’s closet, though. Sachse, the man who was brought in to bring order and propriety back to the Orioles Nest, was jailed in the early 1990s for a Howard County drug-distribution conviction, court records show.

Joseph Cary’s skeletons have been coming out of the closet in recent days, as well. First, the Owls Nest got busted Nov. 2, and Gentile says he expects to file criminal charges against Cary soon. Then on Nov. 14, the Comptroller of Maryland’s office announced that it has filed a $953,515.58 tax lien in the Anne Arundel County courts against Statewide Amusements, Cary, and his wife, Deborah Cary (the couple being the officers of Statewide).

“Sticker shock,” is how state comptroller spokesman Kevin Kane characterizes the amount. “There is no appealing this,” he adds.

Comprising the total are $412,507.58 in unpaid taxes, $180,530.55 in interest, and $360,477.45 in penalties. Kane says it is “a case of intentional fraud” in which Statewide underrepresented its gross sales, uncovered by an audit that started in February of this year and examined the period between February 1999, when the company was formed, and November 2004.

Cary is no stranger to financial stress, though. In 2001, he sought and received Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection from creditors including the state of Maryland, a California company that makes monitors for vending machines, the city of Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, and the University of Maryland Medical System.

He’s also no stranger to the criminal courts. Court records show Cary has had criminal charges filed against him at least once in nearly every year since 1978.

Many of the charges have involved alleged violent disputes with his wife (she sometimes, but not always, refused to testify against him during the trials), and he also has faced charges of, among other things, arson, assault, malicious destruction of property, battery, escape from confinement, breaking and entering, resisting arrest, drug possession, and gambling.

He often avoided convictions when prosecutors declined to bring cases to trial, but there are a few guilty findings—for battery, assault, resisting arrest, malicious destruction of property, and failure to appear at court, for instance. Cary also took probation before judgment in many cases, including an arson charge.

Criminal charges against Dickens are not reflected in a court-record search, but he, too, filed for bankruptcy in 2001. He gained protection from the Internal Revenue Service, the state of Maryland, Prince George’s County, various banks, and an accountant.

Based on their records, Cary and Dickens aren’t exactly the model proprietors of a charitable enterprise that specializes in raising funds through gambling events. Cary, however, manages his money well enough to own a 2003 Hummer H2, a 2001 Chevy Corvette convertible, a large RV, and a 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, among other vehicles, all registered in his, his business’, or his family’s names. It’s an impressive automotive fleet for someone who recently emerged from bankruptcy.

Nonetheless, the charitable company Cary and Dickens started—Fraternal Order of Owls 4525 Inc., incorporated two weeks before it was busted, according to the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation—appears to be a proper charity. That is, if the documentation provided to the Baltimore City Zoning Board in April, when the Owls Nest applied for a variance to put its club in a manufacturing district, is reliable.

(The Owls Nest was given its variance in July, though, according to city housing department records, it received no permits for the $50,000 in renovations stated in the zoning application.)

A signed letter purporting to be from Diane Meader, the supreme secretary of the Home Nest, Order of Owls, located in the “Owl Building, Hartford, Conn.,” includes an undated enclosure to the IRS “to certify that Nest #4525 a duly constituted body of the Fraternal Order Of Owls operating under the lodge system.”

The Home Nest, Order of Owls letterhead in the zoning file gives no street address or phone number for the organization, and the Hartford Public Library couldn’t unearth any information about the “Owl Building” or the “Home Nest, Order of Owls” in Hartford or Connecticut. City Paper could not locate a Diane Meader in Connecticut. According to GuideStar.org, a nonprofit information service, there is no charitable enterprise operating in Connecticut using that name. Nor does GuideStar turn up Cary and Dickens’ Fraternal Order of Owls 4525—although it does show Moran’s Orioles Nest.

The Owls Nest in Baltimore does make charitable donations, though. The zoning file includes copies of numerous checks cut to various entities for charitable purposes, including Pi Kappa Phi ($150), the Church of the Redemption in Locust Point ($150), the Linda Whelan Fund ($150), Toni Aguilar ($500), Seniors Helping Seniors ($250), the American Breast Cancer Foundation ($150), the Boys Home Society of Baltimore ($150), Carol Reyes ($100), Maryland Food Bank ($150), the Baltimore City Fire Fighters Widows and Orphans Fund ($200), the Baltimore Child Abuse Center ($200), and the Associated Black Charities ($200).

The amount donated totals $2,350 and was given between February and July of this year. By way of comparison, on the night of the Nov. 2 raid, a Wednesday, more than $25,000 was seized from the Owls Nest tournament then in progress, including more than $6,600 from Cary’s pants pocket.

These numbers make another letter in the zoning file that much more interesting. It’s from Edward Reisinger, and it states that the city councilman supports the zoning variance for the Owls Nest, pointing out that “all money raised is donated to local charities.”

Reisinger says he supported the zoning change for the Owls Nest and wrote the letter based on the word of the building’s owner, Gilda Johnson, “who’s a respected member of the community,” he says. “I wish I could take that [letter] back, but it’s too late now.”

Johnson says she was convinced the Owls Nest was a charitable enterprise: “There was nothing that would have allowed me to think otherwise. It was done strictly by the books.”

The Nov. 2 vice-squad raid on the Owl’s Nest was historic. According to The Sun, it was the largest gambling bust since the Prohibition era, although prosecutors dropped their charges against nearly everyone arrested Nov. 10 (charges are still pending against 15 accused event organizers).

The prosecutors said the wrong law was used in citing them, and that if so many cases were brought to court they would unnecessarily clog up the docket. While especially large, however, the Owls Nest bust was not unique—even in the past year.

On Feb. 25, Jimmy’s Famous Seafood Restaurant on Holabird Avenue in Southeast Baltimore was busted for a Texas hold-’em tournament (“Game Sharks,” City Paper, March 9), and Peter’s Pour House on Mercer Street near Camden Yards was raided this past spring. Eugene Lovito of Fund Raisers Unlimited was charged with gambling in the Peter’s case, but the charges were shelved by the prosecutor.

Nor was the Owls Nest raid the most recent gambling bust. A week later, on Nov. 10, Gentile’s vice squad nabbed another game, at the Aces High Club on the second floor above the B.J. Mattheiss Insurance Agency at 6716 Harford Road. (Bruce Mattheiss, the building’s owner, did not respond to a call for comment.)

Arrested there on gambling charges, according to court documents, were Baltimore City police officer Vicki Mengel, allegedly hired to provide security, and Brad Lukens, who also was cited at the Owls Nest raid. (Charges against Lukens relating to the Owls Nest were dropped; Mengel and Lukens are scheduled to be tried on charges relating to the Aces High in January 2006.)

Law-enforcement sources say another Owls Nest player from the night of the Nov. 2 raid tipped Gentile off to the Aces High game, setting it up for the bust.

In April, Anne Arundel County got into the poker-raid action. Police there hit a place called Tykie’s Lodge, a Texas hold-’em hot spot housed in an emergency-services contractor’s building right next to the Maryland State Police post in Glen Burnie.

Among those arrested was an 18-year Howard County Police Department veteran, Michael Thorn, who’s accused by Anne Arundel County authorities of helping to organize the game. According to Thorn’s attorney, Clarke Ahlers, the game wasn’t for money, but was an instructional event intended to teach people how to play and deal poker. The case is set for trial next March.

In Baltimore City, even nonprofits are barred from holding poker tournaments for charity. (Laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in Baltimore County, for example, charities are permitted to hold one gambling event a year, including card games.) As Nathan Irby, executive secretary of the Baltimore City Board of Liquor License Commissioners, wrote in a Nov. 5, 2004, letter to liquor licensees, “although specific types of organizations may conduct gambling after obtaining a permit from the Baltimore City Police Department, there are no permits issued for a poker tournament.”

Copies of Irby’s letter were found at the Owls Nest when it was raided, according to law-enforcement sources. Brian Clark, the owner of online poker forum MD-Poker.com, says simply that “poker is illegal in Maryland.”

Clark says he has become an expert on poker laws and thinks charity poker tournaments are giving his game a bad name. “These places that are getting busted, they were asking for it,” he says. “I don’t allow them to advertise on my site. They may give a small portion to charity, but they’re holding games multiple times a week. They’re not doing anything to help our cause, only hurt it. Most of my members were warned beforehand—watch out for places like this.”

Clark’s cause is to legalize poker in Maryland, but “in small baby steps,” he explains. “People should be allowed to have their own friendly poker games with no raking,” he says, referring to the practice of game organizers taking money off the top from players. Ultimately, he’d like to see Maryland copy the Golden State. “In California, where there are legal poker halls, the state reaps a ton of revenue from them, and the state recognizes it for what it is—a game of skill, not a game of chance, like slots or roulette.”

Clark says he is “trying to start a lobbying group” to influence lawmakers in Annapolis on the subject. “We’ve been in the planning stages for about a year now.”

On Nov. 4, immediately after The Sun first covered the Owls Nest raid, Clark posted on MD-Poker.com’s home page a statement to his members: “To put it simple the Owl’s Club got busted because they are idiots.” He added that the club’s organizers “were running a near full time poker room” and “keeping the profits” for themselves. “They advertised and promoted an already illegal game, they rented a business facility to hold the game, they served alcohol without a license. . . . It is their own fault they got busted and this should not scare the average member who enjoys a good low stakes game with 10 or so friends.”

Not all local players agree with Clark that the Owls Nest was a disreputable place.

“I don’t see why they’re outlawing it,” says Joseph Cary associate John Leroy Long Jr., who says he’s been friends with the Owls Nest principal “for many years.”

While law-enforcement sources say Long has been Cary’s driver and has worked for him in other ways over the years, Long, a 56-year-old Southwest Baltimore resident, is adamant: “I never worked for him. I never drove for him.” But he sure enjoyed the Owls Nest. “I played there every day that I could. It’s a shame they closed it down. It was a nice, clean, respectable place, and they weren’t hurting nobody, and they’re honest.”

(Long was sentenced to 34 months in federal prison in 1994 for a cocaine-distribution conviction.)

Toni Aguilar, who received a $500 donation from the Owls Nest to help with her medical expenses while she cared for her terminally ill son earlier this year, says she’s known Owls principal Gerald Dickens since she used to play in and work at poker games in Prince George’s County firehouses, until they were outlawed in 1997. She says Baltimore and Maryland are hurting themselves by keeping poker illegal. Aguilar was among those cited during the Nov. 2 raid (charges against her were dropped).

“The time is ripe to take the lead in regulating it, so it’s legal,” she says. “It’s so hypocritical. The state has keno, the lottery—all games of chance, not skill like poker—and they take money from people who can least afford it. With poker, I know some very prominent lawyers and people in politics who play the games. Any night of the week, you can find a house game, so why not make it legal?”

As for the Owls Nest, Aguilar says that “they set it up very nice. It was a nice atmosphere, and they went out of their way to decorate it with lamps hanging over the tables, neon signs, pictures of poker chips from casinos around the world hanging on the wall, a pool table, a dart board, chess games, video machines with word puzzles and challenge games on them. There were video slot machines in the back, but it was rare to see somebody back there.”

Aguilar’s comments echo those of Sun columnists Dan Rodricks and Michael Olesker, who both wrote about the Owls Nest raid. “With problems as serious as . . . addiction and violence,” Rodricks contended in a Nov. 6 piece, “maybe we could tolerate a little poker and keep the cops on the important stuff.” Olesker chimed in Nov. 11: “Beautiful. The crack dealers stand on nearby street corners, and the cops bust up a poker game. The homicide count climbs, and we turn card players into criminals. Could we have a little perspective please?”

What Aguilar, Rodricks, and Olesker may not appreciate, however, is that clubs like the Owls and Orioles nests, where cops and criminals and perhaps even politicians appear to flock together, are among the reasons why anti-gambling laws are on the books—to prohibit potential corrupting influences on public officials and law enforcement.

The alternative, perhaps, is the Owls motto, found on the mysterious letterhead from the Home Nest in Connecticut: “There’s so much bad in the best of us, and so much good in the worst of us, it hardly behooves any of us, to speak ill of the rest of us.” In other words, leave well enough alone.

Gentile, the city vice cop, appears unwilling to do so. And that’s his job. Given what he’s tapped into with the recent raids, his job’s not over yet.

Friends of Ed Reisinger: Three challenge 10th District veteran

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, Aug. 22, 2007

Edward Reisinger and his family own a tiny little bar in Morrell Park called Good Times, where amusement devices line the narrow walls. Reisinger, a Democrat, is the 10th District city councilman and chairs the Land Use and Transportation Committee, which in April recommended expanding the presence of such regulated devices in neighborhood businesses like his. The machines are known to be used for illegal gambling, yet the Baltimore Licensed Beverage Association, which represents bars and other liquor establishments, requested the bill, and its supporters have donated heavily to Reisinger’s re-election campaign. The measure still awaits a full City Council vote.

Let’s recap: A bar-owning councilman’s committee touts a law backed by his campaign donors to expand opportunities for illegal gambling at bars.

That is some old-school politics, but Reisinger comes from the old school. His father was a South Baltimore state delegate during the midcentury apex of the Stonewall Democratic Club’s since-waned power, when the late state senators George W. Della Sr. (father of today’s 46th District state senator) and Harry J. “Soft Shoes” McGuirk ran the show south of the Inner Harbor. Reisinger himself showed his Morrell Park colors three summers ago, when he got into a scrap with a convicted drug dealer who assaulted him after Reisinger stepped out of Good Times and confronted the guy for throwing trash in the street.

“The system took a drug dealer off the streets of Morrell Park, and that’s what I wanted,” Reisinger told the judge after his attacker got six months in jail.

Like its politicians, the 10th is traditionally old-school territory, and its boundaries are wide. Morrell Park’s Good Times is a long way from, say, Thumpers in Curtis Bay, but like their respective neighborhoods–and like the amusement devices found at both bars–they share a sense of lowbrow stability. Little seems to have changed in the last half-generation or so, just as little has changed in the neighborhoods between them: Brooklyn, Cherry Hill, Westport, and Lakeland. These are places where incomes are low and working-class traditions are old.

While many good jobs left long ago, the number of voters registered there has grown recently. According to the latest data from July, the Democratic electorate in these communities is nearly two-thirds of the district’s 15,345 registered Democrats, and it has grown by nearly 1,500 voters since July 2003, prior to the last city primary. If Reisinger has a territory, this should be it, since all three of his challengers hail from the district’s northern, more posh quarters on the South Baltimore peninsula.

Donnie Fair, 30, is a community activist and computer-network administrator who grew up on a farm, moved to Baltimore in 1999, and bought a rowhouse on Fort Avenue in South Baltimore in 2005. Terry Hickey lives in Federal Hill and is a 37-year-old community lawyer who started a nonprofit to help kids grow up to be good citizens. Hunter Pruette, a 31-year-old North Carolina native, is a criminal defense attorney who moved to South Baltimore after working in 2003 as traveling chief of staff of U.S. Senator John Edwards’ presidential campaign.

These three challengers live in some of the hottest neighborhoods in the Baltimore real-estate market, where a new breed of residents has been drawn. Long-rooted families have moved on in recent years, getting top dollar for their ancestral rowhouses. Taverns have changed hands, accommodating new tastes. Aging industrial sites have been rezoned and redeveloped. The yuppies took over.

Times have changed since 1990, when Reisinger, as an appointed councilman (he lost re-election in 1991, and regained a seat in 1995), told The Washington Times in an article about Locust Pointers that “I don’t think anybody’s moving out. They’re hanging tough.”

Here’s the twist: Reisinger’s committee chairmanship has involved facilitating the district’s fast-paced redevelopment that has supplanted the old-timers with newcomers–including his challengers in this race. Voters on the South Baltimore peninsula between Middle Branch and the Inner Harbor make up a little more than a third of 10th’s Democrats, and 1,974 more voters are registered there today than in 2003. The downside: Only 625 of them are Democrats. But they vote; average turnout by Democrats voting in these precincts in 2003 was high at 42 percent, compared to 33 percent in the rest of the district.

But if this is the challengers’ political base, and they’re splitting it three ways, they’ll have to look beyond the peninsula for success.

A measure of Reisinger’s support comes from the results of his last election, which he almost lost. It was a similar scenario in 2003, with three challengers. Reisinger won with 39 percent of the vote, but the only precincts where the majority voted for him were in Locust Point, Morrell Park, and South Baltimore. Nicole Pastore-Klein got more than half the votes in Federal Hill and ended up with 36 percent districtwide, while Charlie Metz took 21 percent and a fourth candidate barely made a showing. Thus, the challengers undermined one another by splitting the large anti-incumbent vote and Reisinger kept his council seat by a hair.

Could it happen again?

“Based on Ed’s approach to his campaign,” Hickey responds, “that’s what he thinks is going to happen again. But there is a lot of anti-Ed sentiment, and whoever gets that [voting bloc] wins.”

“I don’t necessarily agree” that a reprise of 2003’s split vote is in the offing, Pruette responds. “People want new ideas and new leadership and they’re tired of the same old promises.”

“Well, sure we’re going to split the vote,” Fair says. “But that’s only because that’s the way math works. I’m going to win because I have a different kind of connection to voters than these other guys.”

Reisinger sees these thirtysomethings as “political opportunists” who are misperceiving a weak incumbent where there is none, and trying vainly to cash in. “I’m not being arrogant,” he explains, “but these are three people who want to run, and they are running from the peninsula. That’s not something I can control. If they want the job, they got to hit the rest of the district.”

All three challengers have some money to spend, but only one has anything like Reisinger’s war chest, which on Aug. 14 carried a balance of $36,600: Pruette, with $29,400, thanks to a national donor base that stretches from Washington to Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Hickey’s balance of $9,800 is next in line, and his top donor, with $4,000, is Leonard Bush of Pasadena in Anne Arundel County, better known as “Len the Plumber,” who grew up in Morrell Park. Fair had about $1,200 on hand, just enough to cover outstanding bills. But one of Fair’s most generous donors–Joyce Bauerle, president of the Locust Point Civic Association, who gave $300, compared to the $50 she gave Reisinger last year–carries some clout on the peninsula.

Raising funds to underwrite even a modest campaign can be a Sisyphean task, especially for neophyte challengers like Reisinger’s opponents. It’s not so hard for most incumbents, but Reisinger, as the chairman of the Land Use and Transportation Committee, has it especially easy. The position draws big-money political donors, since legislation developers need passed must be approved by his committee first. (It also helps to have Good Times in the family; the bar contributed $3,100.)

Reisinger’s political fundraising, as with many politicians’ campaigns, can be directly tied to his legislative record. He was sole sponsor of two enacted bills that came through his committee to permit redevelopment of the old Chesapeake Paperboard property in Locust Point, for instance, and his efforts were rewarded with a total of at least $3,950 in campaign donations from the developer, his lawyer, and his family members. Another enacted bill, sole-sponsored by Reisinger and approved by his committee, was to down-zone a Locust Point property on Beason Street from manufacturing to residential use, prompted donations totaling $1,575 from the owner and his lawyers. There are other examples in Reisinger’s record of the same pattern, though there was one notable example, the Harborview development, in which he sided against the developer.

“Any developer who comes to me, I say, `You got to go to the community first, and if they see it as a win-win, then I’ll introduce the bill and I’ll support it,'” Reisinger says, explaining his protocol for handling land-use bills. As for how the same developers often donate to his campaign, he implies that they’re simply in the list of potential donors whom he calls. “I hired Colleen Martin-Lauer as a consultant to do my fundraising,” Reisinger explains. “And she has a book with a number of businesses and individuals that I call, tell them my spiel, and ask for a contribution. It doesn’t mean I carry water for them.”

Fair’s gloves come off when he talks about how Reisinger raises money: “It’s easy to raise money when everyone knows you’re for sale.” Hickey says he doesn’t want to hire a fundraiser–“I don’t want that book to raise money from.”–but acknowledges that if he becomes an incumbent running for re-election, “you may end up writing an article later that says I’m a hypocrite.”

Pruette says Reisinger’s fundraising strategy is “very common, and that’s the power of incumbency. But you have to be careful to represent your constituents and not those who fund our campaign. People have come to expect better than that, and I think that’s part of this race.”

In this race, the three challengers are all trying to slay a giant–Reisinger, the incumbent, who has all the trappings and advantages of longstanding power. If Reisinger wins, then his vote-splitting opponents, despite their intentions, will actually have served as his friends.

Bodog Internet Gambling Investigation Leads to Money-Laundering Charges

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, Oct. 30, 2008

Federal authorities in Maryland have filed money-laundering charges against two men, Edward Courdy and Michael Garone, who have figured in an ongoing investigation into the internet gambling empire Bodog. Both men were described in two forfeiture proceedings earlier this year, which resulted in the seizure of a total of $24 million from numerous bank accounts, as processors of illegal gambling transactions in the United States on behalf of Bodog.

The charges against Courdy and Garone were filed on Sept. 29, though the filings were not publicized and were found yesterday by City Paper on the online federal courts web site, known as PACER.

Courdy is charged with transferring $2,380,273 in April from Dublin, Ireland, to a Nevada State Bank account held by Zaftig Instantly Processed Payments Corporation (ZIP Payments), and then to Maryland and elsewhere, to promote the carrying on of an illegal gambling business [Courdy Info]. Garone is charged with the same general scheme, alleged to have occurred in April 2007, involving the transfer of $1,499,975 from Frankfurt, Germany, to Branch Banking and Trust Bank account in Georgia held by JBL Services, Inc. [Garone Info].

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland confirms that the two men are not currently in custody on the charges, and that no court dates have been set in the cases. Spokeswoman Marcia Murphy says that the office cannot discuss the matters other than what is contained in the court filings.

The Sept. 29 filing the of Courdy and Garone charges coincides with the date that Courdy and ZIP Payments filed a claim in forfeiture proceedings involving $9,869,283.05, which was seized in July from several bank accounts tied to Courdy. Courdy and ZIP Payments, through their California attorney, Stanley I. Greenberg, are seeking the return of the seized money. Also filing a claim that day was 1st Technology, LLC, which recently won a $46,597,849 Nevada court judgment against Bodog and is seeking to collect part of the money by intervening in the ZIP Payments forfeiture proceeding.

Garone and his company, JBL Services, did not contest the federal forfeiture of $14,200,195.73 in alleged Bodog-related proceeds [Bodog Affadavit $14.2M]. In mid-July, Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Blake finalized the forfeiture of those funds.

Garone and Courdy could not be reached for comment. Greenberg, Courdy’s attorney in the forfeiture case, did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

The affidavits supporting the forfeiture proceedings describe in great detail the lengthy, convoluted efforts of Internal Revenue Service criminal investigator Randall S. Carrow to bring to light the global movement of money in support of Bodog’s on-line gambling activities. The documents also indicate that the case is being brought in Maryland because on-line gambling via Bodog was conducted by an undercover agent working in Maryland.

Bodog founder Calvin Ayre, a Canadian now living in Antigua, became a world-famous billionaire from online gambling and other entertainment enterprises. He was featured on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2006. Carrow writes in his affidavit that investigative interest in Bodog and Ayre started in 2003, but the passage of a 2006 federal law that strengthened prosecutors’ ability to go after on-line gambling activities kicked a formal investigation into gear.

GoldenCasino.com’s Payment Processor Targeted in Latest On-Line Gambling Seizures in Maryland

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, Oct. 28, 2009

As the Maryland-based federal probe of on-line gambling continues, the latest move to show up in court records in Baltimore is the seizure of $365,366.69 from two bank accounts in the name of Atrium Financial Group (AFG). According to the affidavit in the case (below), Delaware-based AFG disburses money to on-line gamblers, including those who try their luck using GoldenCasino.com. City Paper has been unable to reach representatives of AFG and GoldenCasino.com for comment.

The AFG seizure—unlike several others reported recently by City Paper—is supported by an affidavit that was not sealed (see Atrium Financial Group affidavit). The 13-page sworn statement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agent Augusta Ferenec, who is based in New Orleans, La., provides a peek into the complexities of the investigation. Signed on Sept. 4 by U.S. District Court magistrate judge Beth Gesner, the warrant was filed in the court records on Oct. 22.

According to Ferenec’s affidavit, the investigation leading to the AFG seizures dates to July 14, 2008, when Louisiana State Police (LSP) officers opened an “undercover gambling account” with GoldenCasino.Com, and then later requested a payout. The first check–from a Canadian outfit called Interco Finance Corporation (IFC)–bounced. Eventually, a second check came, this one from AFG. Thus, the investigation established that GoldenCasino.com was using both IFC and AFG as payment processors for its on-line gambling patrons. Ferenec explains in the affidavit that a fourth business–Con-Tex Converters, another Canadian firm–entered the picture as investigators followed the global movement of funds.

For instance, an AFG account with Mercantile Bank received wire transfers between Dec. 2008 and Jan. 2009 amounting to more than $1.5 million. The money came from a Con-Tex bank account in Cyprus and a combined Con-Tex/IFC bank account in Canada. During the same timeframe, Ferenec’s affidavit continues, AFG cut 1,473 checks from that account, at least two of which went to people in Maryland. In Aug. 2009, investigators talked to one of the Maryland recipients, who admitted the proceeds had come from gambling.

In all, Ferenec’s affidavit maps out a total of nearly $6.3 million wired internationally by either Con-Tex or IFC to AFG bank accounts in the U.S. The AFG accounts, which the affidavit says have all been closed by the banks due to suspicions that the money was tied to illegal gambling, were held with Mercantile, Sovereign Bank, Wachovia Bank, National City Bank, and TD Bank North. The international wire transfers from Con-Tex and IFC were the sole sources of funds in the AFG accounts, the affidavit explains.

The two AFG bank accounts targeted for seizure are with Fifth Third Bank and Wilmington Savings Fund Society. The Fifth Third account, from which $124,028.88 was seized, received about $3.3 million in wire transfers from Con-Tex and IFC between Dec. 2008 and June 2009, the affidavit explains. Nearly 4,000 checks were cut from the account, totaling about $3.1 million disbursed to people in the U.S. During July and Aug. 2009, 35 of those checks were issued to Marylanders. The amount of money entering AFG’s Wilmington Savings account is not specified in the affidavit, which explains that about 575 checks were cut from the account, one of which was mailed to a Texan who “confirmed to the bank that the check was proceeds of online gambling.”

Ferenec’s affidavit says it’s likely that money will continue to enter the targeted accounts “for a period of time” after the warrants are executed, because those involved “will be unable to promptly stop the flow of funds or inform all of their contacts of this investigation.” Thus, Ferenec requests that the warrant order the banks to allow the deposits to continue, but not any attempted debits, and that “ICE be allowed to periodically remove such funds” during a 21-day period after the warrants are executed.

The Ghost Hand: Maryland Law Enforcers Aim to Take the Pot by Secretly Sitting at the Online Gambling Table

IMG_8071

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, March 24, 2010

On Dec. 21, 2006, someone in Maryland opened an account with bodog.com, an online gaming site whose customers bet on sports and horse-racing and play poker and casino games on their computers. The same day, that same someone placed two online bets on football games with Bodog. Over the course of 2007, after more wagering, the online gambler requested and received two payout checks from Bodog: one for $1,500 and another for $700.

Mundane as they may seem, the Maryland gambler’s wagers and payouts have had major repercussions in the online-gambling world. That’s because, starting in 2008, the details of that person’s online betting activities were included in meticulous affidavits supporting warrants to seize the contents of bank accounts said to be tied to illegal gambling. The Maryland gambler was actually a special agent working undercover for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Division.

Under U.S. law, facilitating transactions tied to online gambling is illegal. Yet, due to the immense popularity among Americans of wagering over the internet, the overseas companies that provide this kind of entertainment continue to seek ways to do business with U.S. customers. In order to pay out winnings to gamblers in this country, they have to hire U.S. companies willing to operate as payment processors–middle-men who take foreign casino companies’ money and disburse it to players when they want to cash out their online gambling accounts. These payment processors are taking a risk that U.S. law enforcement will detect the transactions and seize the money while it’s sitting in the payment processors’ accounts–which is exactly what federal investigators in Maryland, and elsewhere, have been doing–but due to the lucrative nature of the business, both the payment processors and the online-casino companies have been willing to take that gamble.

In the post-Sept. 11 world, the U.S. government has developed a heightened interest in augmenting its ability to track the ways and means of global money-moving. Though the motivation is to protect the world from terrorists by interrupting their finances, this trend also means that financial crimes of all kinds–including the movement of online gambling money into the United States–face a greater risk of detection. In the world of internet wagering, whenever money is sitting in a U.S. bank account, it is exposed to possible seizure by the authorities. And, as investigators’ successes mount, it’s clear they are getting better at it.

IRS criminal investigators in Maryland “opened a formal investigation of Bodog in 2006,” court records state, after having “conducted interviews regarding Bodog.com, Calvin Ayre, and Bodog’s operations in approximately 2003.” Ayre, a Canadian who’s been living in exile for several years now, is the founder of Bodog, which is based in Antigua and has operations in Costa Rica.

Bodog, a 15-year-old company which claims to be the world’s pre-eminent online gambling site and whose operations span the globe, is not the first to be targeted by American law enforcement’s crackdown on internet gambling. That honor goes to Jay Cohen, who in 1998 was indicted in New York along with numerous other defendants for violating the federal Wire Wager Act in running the Antigua-based World Sports Exchange. Cohen fought the charges, saying federal laws prohibiting wire transfers of gambling proceeds do not apply to the internet. He lost and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Since then, the feds have continued to focus on an industry that, in effect, presents opportunities for people to gamble anywhere and anytime, despite the laws of any particular country or state.

“If you’re in Antigua running a casino, that’s fine,” says Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. “But if you’re actually operating a casino in someone’s bedroom in Montgomery County over the internet, that’s illegal.” Thus, any proceeds that can be traced to gambling activity that takes place in Maryland–whether it’s actual betting over the internet, or just the arrival of checks in the mailboxes of Maryland gamblers cashing out their online-gambling accounts–could end up seized by Maryland authorities.

Since early 2008, according to federal court records, the ongoing federal investigation of online gambling based in Maryland–which, in addition to the IRS, also involves members of a Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) task force–has brought at least $29,206,594.62 in alleged gambling proceeds into federal coffers. The latest warrant in the investigation was signed by U.S. magistrate judge Paul Grimm in early February, and it targeted the contents of a Mercantile Bank account in Tampa, Fla. The account, held in the name of a company called Direct Channel LLC, yielded $860,335.90 on March 5. Direct Channel, like the other companies included in the Maryland internet-gambling seizures, allegedly provided payment-processing services in the U.S. for gambling web sites based in other countries. Though the Maryland investigation initially appeared to focus on payment processors for Bodog, such as Direct Channel, it has since broadened to include funds held by companies serving another gambling site, goldencasino.com, which is also based in Antigua.

Any U.S. bank account used by a payment processor working with online casinos could be targeted by investigators, potentially wiping out millions of dollars when a seizure warrant arrives at the bank. But due to the magnitude of online gambling in the United States–half of the $16 billion per year that internet gambling is estimated to generate is believed to originate in the United States–the risk may be worth it. Though federal investigators in Maryland and elsewhere, including New York, Missouri, and Florida, go for the money, there’s so much in play at any given moment that what they seize is only a small portion of money flow.

So far, after several years of effort, Maryland law enforcers have seized nearly $30 million in suspected online-gambling proceeds. That’s equal to less than one half of one percent of the $8 billion that U.S. online gamblers are estimated to spend each year. But it’s a start. And as the effort builds and grows more sophisticated and nimble with experience, the potential is as vast as the American online-gambling economy itself.

“There are very big numbers in internet gambling,” say Rosenstein, acknowledging the sizeable cut the government could get through seizing and forfeiting assets, which are funneled into law-enforcement budgets to support the efforts of the agencies that seized them. Asked if seizures, in the long run, could undermine gambling web sites’ ability to pay out to U.S. customers, he says: “That’s a possibility, and it’s certainly a risk for customers. And it’s a pretty effective deterrent, since customers have no remedy if the gambling operator fails to pay. They won’t be able to go into court and enforce that. It’s an illegal contract.”

Seizing and forfeiting criminally derived assets, including those from online gambling, has been made a priority by Rosenstein’s office. Last year, he hired the nation’s top asset-forfeiture prosecutor–Stefan Cassella, who literally wrote the book on the subject, a 950-page tome entitled Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States–to lead the effort. Among Cassella’s achievements is the largest forfeiture in U.S. history: $1.2 billion from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the 1990s. Given the size of the online-gambling industry’s assets, Cassella may have an opportunity to break his own record while working in Maryland.

Law-enforcement efforts to interrupt internet-gambling money flowing in and out of the United States were ramped up after the 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which was signed by President George W. Bush in October that year. Before that law was passed, the federal Wire Act, which dates back to 1961, already prohibited the transfer of gambling proceeds via wire communications. That law had been used to go after internet gambling prior to the UIGEA’s passage. But unlike the Wire Act, the UIGEA specifically outlaws internet-gambling transactions and requires financial operators, such as banks and payment processors, to determine which transactions are tied to online gambling and report them to regulators.

The banking industry, concerned that UIGEA requirements would be difficult to enforce and would force bankers to become anti-gambling police, persuaded the Obama administration to postpone the law, scheduled for implementation in December 2009, for six months. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), meanwhile, is currently trying to usher through legislation that would repeal the UIGEA and instead set up a regulate-and-tax scheme for the industry, arguing that online gambling is a liberty–and a potentially large source of public revenues–that the government should not prohibit.

But Rosenstein contends that going after the illegal profits gained from the U.S. market for internet gambling is a matter of fairness. “What Americans find particularly galling,” he says, “is when something is criminalized, honest people don’t engage in the activity, but criminals do, so they get excess profits because their only competition is from other criminals.”

Those seeking to legitimize aspects of online gambling, though, have other thoughts on the matter. Last year, in trying to persuade a federal judge to release funds seized from a payment processor allegedly tied to online gambling, lawyers for the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), a Washington, D.C.-based interest group, argued that online poker is a game of skill, not of chance, and thus is not illegal gambling. They also contended that the UIGEA establishes criminal culpability for “persons who operate illegal gambling sites, rather than those who process payment transactions,” and that restricted transactions under the UIGEA do not include funds going to a gambler because a gambler is “not engaged in the business of betting or wagering.”

The lawyers for the PPA (whose motto is “Poker is not a crime: Join the fight.”) did not prevail. But their efforts–and the well-heeled existence of the PPA, which has its own lobbying arm, PokerPAC, and whose board is chaired by former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato (R-New York)–indicates that powerful forces in American society don’t like the online-gambling crackdown. Recent public-opinion polling, though, indicates the prohibition of online gambling is popular; two-thirds of those responding to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released on March 11 say they do not favor legalizing it.

Though online gambling is legal in many parts of the globe, enjoyed by many Americans, and accepted in many cultures–to the point that online-gambling companies’ stocks often are publicly traded in other nations–its continued prohibition in the United States may be explained by the longtime association of the gambling industry with unseemly characters making obscene profits.

Recent cases against internet gambling operations, for instance, give a sense of the profit potential the business presents and sometimes allege organized-crime ties. In New York in October 2009, the operators of Panama-based betonline.com were charged with illegal online gambling; authorities claimed the group made $587 million in 28 months and was linked to the Gambino and Genovese crime families. In a 2006 Missouri case against the longtime gambling figures who ran Costa Rica-based betonsports.com, the indictment states that the company’s promotional materials boasted “100,000 active players, who placed 33 million wagers, worth over $1.6 billion” in 2003, before the company went public on the London stock exchange. In February, Missouri authorities indicted the operators of Costa Rica-based Elite Sports, which ran the web sites best24b.com and best24b.net, and among the defendants were members of the Kansas City’s storied Cammisano crime family.

In addition, federal authorities in New York have charged two men–Anurag Dikshit in 2008 (Dikshit NY info) and Douglas Rennick in 2009 (Rennick indictment)–with illegally running online-gambling ventures. Dikshit, who was born in India and is one of the youngest billionaires in the world thanks to the success of his online-gambling business, is co-founder of the Gibraltar company that operated partypoker.com; charges against him include the forfeiture of $300 million in gambling revenues. Rennick, a Canadian, ran a series of payment-processing companies that allegedly served the internet-gambling industry, and the government is seeking to forfeit more than a half billion dollars of the proceeds from his financial dealings.

Another alleged payment processor was charged in Florida in February, when a bank alerted federal authorities that customers were trying to cash large checks they said were the payouts from online-gambling winnings. Michael Olaf Schuett, a German man living in Naples, Fla., had set up hundreds of companies and had dozens of bank accounts that were allegedly used to operate the scheme since 2007. The complaint against him (Schuett FL complaint) says that he transferred online-gambling payments to about 23,000 people, mostly in the United States, and that the total amount of money involved was $70 million.

In what may have been the first federal gambling case involving the internet in Maryland, IRS investigators and Montgomery County police teamed up to bust a ring that, in 2003 and 2004, handled action from Maryland customers on behalf of a Dominican company called World Wide Wagering, which runs the web site wager.dm. The conspiracy case, which ended with the convictions of seven men from Montgomery County, Baltimore, and Florida, followed the money flow to and from bettors and the defendants. The case included the cashing of more than $150,000 worth of checks at University Liquors in Hyattsville.

Just as IRS agents in Maryland were cracking the World Wide Wagering case, they started looking into Bodog. But it wasn’t until December 2006, shortly after the UIGEA was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush, that the Bodog investigation got serious–it began with an investigator logging onto the web site, posing as a customer, and starting to gamble.

Once the investigator started receiving payout checks in 2007, the money trail could be tracked. In the meantime, the investigation gained a cooperating witness from inside the internet-gambling industry, who corroborated facts about Bodog’s operations, including the contention that “Bodog takes in from $250,000 to millions per day on sports bookmaking alone,” court records show. An informant also helped out by corroborating facts based on experience using Bodog’s site to gamble in Florida. The informant was able to explain the betting process to investigators; additional information was gleaned from investigators working online-gambling probes in other jurisdictions.

By 2008, sufficient cause had been established by Maryland IRS investigators to seize funds from the bank accounts of three payment-processing companies suspected of handling funds for Bodog: JBL Services and Transactions Solutions in Georgia (JBL forfeiture), and a California company called ZAFTIG Instantly Processed Payments Corp., operating as ZipPayments.com.

On Jan. 18, 2008, U.S. District Court magistrate judge Beth Gesner signed a search-and-seizure warrant application for bank accounts in the name of JBL Services and Transactions Solutions; $14,200,195.73 was seized. On June 28, 2008, U.S. District Court magistrate judge Susan Gauvey signed another warrant application for ZipPayments.com bank accounts, which yielded another $9,869,283.05. By July 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland had filed forfeiture actions against both pots of money. The legal actions were based on lengthy affidavits written by IRS criminal investigator Randall Carrow.

In September 2008, the case against ZipPayments.com’s money suddenly heated up. A claim for nearly $10 million was filed by ZipPayments.com and Edward Courdy, a California man who sought to have the money returned, saying it was lawfully his. Within days of filing his claim, Courdy was charged with money laundering, as was Michael Garone, a Georgia man connected to JBL Services and Transaction Solutions (“Bodog Internet Gambling Investigation Leads to Money-Laundering Charges,” Mobtown Beat, Oct. 30, 2008). In February 2009, as a result of a forfeiture settlement negotiated by Courdy’s attorney, Stanley Greenberg, and assistant U.S. attorney Richard Kay, the government returned $200,000 of the ZipPayments.com money to Courdy, and kept the rest.

Today, the status of the criminal cases against Courdy and Garone is unclear. Some time in the fall of 2009, a little over a year after they were filed, the online records of the cases against them disappeared from the federal court-records database system, known as Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER). Since Maryland’s federal courts handle only electronically filed documents, PACER is the only repository of its records. The disappearance from PACER of Maryland criminal case numbers 08-454 (against Courdy) and 08-455 (against Garone), creates the illusion that they were never filed at all–though City Paper still has copies of the documents charging them, which bear Rosenstein’s signature. Despite City Paper‘s requests for explanation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland has remained mum about what happened.

Courdy’s lawyer, Greenberg, has consistently declined City Paper‘s request for comment about his client’s troubles in Maryland. Efforts to contact Garone, and to identify his lawyer in the Maryland case, have been unsuccessful.

After the money seizures and criminal charges involving Courdy and Garone were filed, the online gambling investigation in Maryland appears to have shifted from the IRS to Immigration and Customs Enforcement–and the level of secrecy surrounding the investigation increased. Though numerous search-and-seizure warrants have been filed for the contents of bank accounts and an e-mail account associated with payment processors since last summer, nearly all of them were granted under seal, so probable cause for the seizures has not been revealed to the public.

Despite the secret nature of many of the seizure filings, certain information about them is available. Three ICE task force members in Maryland–Maryland State Police trooper Robert J. Mignona, ICE special agent M. Lisa Ward, and Anne Arundel County Police detective Richard S. Gunn–and one ICE special agent in Louisiana, Augusta B. Ferenec, filed the warrant applications. The companies whose bank accounts have been seized–HMD, Forshay Enterprises , and Electracash in California; Atrium Financial Group (AFG) in Delaware; and Direct Channel in Florida–are in the payment-processing business. The amounts seized so far from these companies’ bank accounts add up to $5,137,115.84. And, in the case of Electracash–a business that has past associations with Courdy–warrants have been issued not only to seize the contents of bank accounts, but of an e-mail account the company has with Intermedia, a New York City communications company. (The Electracash e-mail warrant, unlike the bank-account seizures, so far has yielded nothing, court records show.)

One of the unsealed search-warrant affidavits–the one filed early this year against Direct Channel’s bank account in Florida–was written by Ward, but draws directly from the IRS affidavit in the Courdy and Garone seizures, and thus sheds no new light on the investigation’s details. The other unsealed warrant, against Atrium Financial Group and written by Ferenec, shows that ICE’s financial-investigations group in New Orleans, La., along with the Louisiana State Police, are in on the Maryland probe (“GoldenCasino.com’s Payment Processor Targeted in Latest OnLine Gambling Seizures in Maryland,” The News Hole, Oct. 28, 2009).

The Louisiana end of the Maryland investigation began on July 14, 2008, when Louisiana State Police officers opened a gambling account with goldencasino.com. They did not immediately succeed, because the bank they were using to deposit $100 into the gambling account apparently blocked the transaction. On the second try, though, they succeeded. They then requested a payout.

The first payout check bounced, but the second one, from AFG, cleared, and the investigators, using information they gleaned from their transactions, used their investigative powers to start on up the money trail. They discovered funds moving between Canadian companies’ bank accounts in Canada and Cyprus and on to AFG bank accounts in the United States, which then issued checks to U.S. residents, including in Maryland. The transactions they tracked involved millions of dollars zipping across the globe.

“Because of enhanced monitoring of financial transactions since Sept. 11, we have a much better handle on the movement of funds,” Rosenstein says about the ability of investigators to dig into the online-gambling industry. In fact, the affidavits of investigators Carrow and Ferenec indicate that initiating a successful seizure of funds from payment processors doesn’t require particularly sophisticated investigative techniques. The trick, it seems, is trying to pinpoint where the money will be at any given moment, hoping to gain court orders to freeze it, and seize it before it shifts yet again.

Rosenstein points out another challenge investigators face in trying to seize online gambling funds: While it’s relatively easy to go after funds in U.S. accounts, going after offshore accounts–where the big money is, since that’s where the online gaming companies operate–is tricky.

“It’s similar to the challenges we face with child pornography, which is often stored overseas and transported to the United States over the internet,” Rosenstein says. “The degree of international cooperation with regard to child pornography is far greater than with offshore gambling, though. But we can readily intercept the money flowing through financial institutions that we have jurisdiction over.”

Rosenstein says online gambling can be prosecuted anywhere that customers are located, and that the public should expect to see more enforcement efforts taking place in more jurisdictions. He says that criminal activity is increasingly becoming more internet-based, and that investigative agencies are becoming more focused on financial crimes. They’re also becoming more sophisticated when it comes to following the money.

“Anything that illegally generates large amounts of money is a concern on many levels,” Rosenstein says. “People engaged in such conduct may be committing other crimes. They may not be paying taxes, and they may be investing in other illegal activities.”

The Rake’s Helper: California man to cooperate with federal online gambling probe as part of plea deal

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, Jan. 12, 2011

“Yes, your honor,” James Davitt said, over and over again, as he answered U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake’s questions during his Jan. 4 hearing in the federal courthouse in Baltimore. He was in Blake’s court to plead guilty to a single count of conducting an illegal gambling business. The hearing revealed that the 38-year-old California man—one of five people charged publicly in connection with an ongoing federal probe of online gambling staged by Maryland’s U.S. Attorney’s Office (“The Ghost Hand,” Feature, March 24, 2010)—signed an agreement in November to cooperate with federal authorities in Maryland and New York, where a high-profile online gambling investigation is also underway.

Davitt’s plea agreement, as summarized by Blake during the hearing, may require him to testify in court and turn over documents. “If truthful in your cooperation,” Blake explained to Davitt, then the documents and information that he may provide “cannot be used against you” by prosecutors, though if he breaks the agreement or fails to be truthful, she continued, he could face new charges based on that same information. Davitt’s “sentencing might be delayed until your cooperation is complete,” Blake said. The prosecutor, Richard Kay, told Blake that Davitt’s cooperation will “take up at least the next several months.”

Davitt—a square-faced, broad-shouldered fellow with a close-cropped beard, wearing a brown suit—was released on his own recognizance while the charges are pending against him. His release form indicates he resides in La Habra, Calif. A portion of the hearing was spent addressing the fact that he keeps a gun in a safe at his home, which he is required to relinquish under the terms of his supervised release.

The other four people charged so far in Maryland are Edward Courdy, Michael Garone, Kenneth Wienski, and Martin Loftus. The cases against them, and related forfeiture cases in which the government seeks to keep seized cash, are part of a federal push to interrupt the flow of international online gambling money when it is in the United States, where the proceeds are considered illicit gains. The companies that provide online gambling services tend to be foreign entities that allegedly rely on facilitators, called “payment processors,” to conduct gambling transactions in the massive U.S. market, which is estimated to account for about 70 percent of the $4 billion-a-year industry.

Courdy, of California, and Garone, a Georgian, were charged with money laundering in 2008 (“Bodog Internet Gambling Investigation Leads to Money-Laundering Charges,” Mobtown Beat, Oct. 30, 2008). The cases against both men were initially filed publicly, but disappeared from the court docket in late 2009, presumably after having been placed under seal by a judge. Courdy’s case appears to still be under seal, but Garone’s re-emerged on the public docket in December, when he was sentenced to a year of probation. He signed his plea agreement in September 2008, when the charges were first filed against him, and the agreement’s statement of facts describes a scheme in which he helped launder money used as payouts in 2007 to online gamblers who wagered on sites operated by Bodog, a company based in Canada and Costa Rica. The transactions amounted to at least $7.9 million.

Gambling and money-laundering charges were leveled against Wienski, a Missourian, in May 2010 (“Billing Complaint,” Mobtown Beat, May 24, 2010). The 12-page criminal complaint against Wienski accuses him of using a medical-billing company, SNR Inc., and a check-processing company where he worked, Diversified Check Solutions, to move online gambling funds in 2009. The complaint also summarizes how federal law enforcers in Maryland have gone after the industry since 2006, when then President George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) prohibiting internet gambling-related transactions in the United States. To date, Wienski has not had any court appearances related to the Maryland charges.

Davitt’s name was mentioned numerous times in the complaint against Wienski, though Davitt himself was not formally charged until Dec. 7 (“Superfecta,” Mobtown Beat, Dec. 10, 2010). In the Wienski complaint, Davitt is described as using two California companies, HMD Inc. and Forshay Enterprises—both of which have had funds seized by investigators (The News Hole, Sept. 24, 2009)—to facilitate online gambling transactions. In particular, Davitt and Wienski are alleged to have moved funds for two of the world’s largest online poker sites—Ireland’s Full Tilt Poker, and Poker Stars, based in the Isle of Man—in 2009 via HMD and SNR. Davitt’s plea agreement says $3.9 million in Full Tilt Poker money was involved in the transactions for which he pleaded guilty.

In preparing for Davitt to plead guilty, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a memorandum to persuade Blake that online poker is primarily a game of chance rather than skill, and thus is illegal under Maryland law (The News Hole, Dec. 16, 2010). The memorandum, which includes as an attachment an academic paper prepared for prosecutors by University of Maryland mathematics professor Benjamin Kedem, addresses a subject that has been hotly debated. Last year in Pennsylvania, a state judge ruled that “skill predominates over chance” in poker, though the ruling was later overturned by a higher state court.

On Dec. 8, 2010, the day after Davitt was charged, a criminal information was filed against Loftus, accusing him of a single count of money laundering in connection with the 2009 transfer of $1.5 million from Switzerland to an HMD bank account in California. Details of the accusation against Loftus are spare, though in Davitt’s guilty plea, Loftus and another man—Daward Lee Falls, the CEO of Electracash, a California company previously associated with Courdy (The News Hole, Sept. 24, 2009) —are named as having “made arrangements with representatives of Full Tilt Poker to make payments by checks to gamblers through HMD, Inc.” Loftus is scheduled to be arraigned in court on Jan. 19.

Loftus and Wienski, neither of whom have defense attorneys listed on their case dockets, could not be reached for comment, and neither could Garone. Courdy’s attorney, Stanley Greenberg, has consistently declined comment. Falls has not responded to City Paper’s numerous messages since investigators seized money from Electracash bank accounts in 2009. Davitt’s attorney, Christopher Mead, had no comment.

In addition to the five men charged in Maryland’s online gambling investigation, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Marcia Murphy writes in an e-mail that “our office has seized $65 million, some of which is still being litigated.” The amount, while large, pales in comparison to the federal investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which Davitt will be helping under his plea agreement. There, for instance, more than half a billion dollars has been seized in connection with charges against Douglas Rennick, a Canadian, who ran payment-processing companies that served the online gambling industry, and another $300 million was forfeited by Anurag Dikshit, a founder of partypoker.com. Both men pleaded guilty in 2010. In addition, the Financial Times in London reported last year that Full Tilt Poker is under criminal investigation by New York’s Southern District prosecutors.

The fact that Davitt’s plea agreement commits him to cooperating with authorities both in Maryland and in the Southern District of New York suggests investigators in the two jurisdictions are coordinating their efforts. And, since efforts to repeal the UIGEA failed during the lame-duck session of Congress that ended in December, it appears that facilitators of online gambling in the United States will remain targeted by federal investigators for the foreseeable future. At the very least, the ongoing probe is proving lucrative to federal coffers.

Luck of the Draw: Police Bust Gunmen Robbing Greektown Poker Game

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, June 7, 2006

IN A 15-MINUTE PERIOD AROUND 11 P.M. on Thursday, May 25, Baltimore City racked up 21 victims of violent crime in Greektown: 18 armed robberies and three attempted armed robberies. The incident is a blow to the victims and to Mayor Martin O’Malley’s attempts to reduce violent crime in the city—a central theme of his campaign for governor. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the two suspects were caught while robbing $23,827 from a high-stakes poker game, an illegal activity that O’Malley made light of last fall, after police raided two poker games that netted charges against nearly 100 players.

Last Nov. 17, O’Malley discussed the poker raids on WBAL Radio, relating cheekily how he had asked police commanders, “‘How many people do we have assigned to the poker task force? Do you think we could reassign them to the violent-crime and drug task force?’” He continued, “It seems like we’ve become obsessed with poker games. I think there are more deadly challenges facing our city and our citizens.”

As of press time, the police department had not responded to City Paper’s request for information and comment about the Greektown poker robbery. When mayoral spokeswoman Raquel Guillory was asked if the mayor’s thoughts about poker enforcement had changed after the robbery, she had only this to say: “We have a vice squad who, along with other crimes, track these as well. These particular types of games pose a risk to the players because there is usually a large amount of money and the police don’t know about them. But these are illegal.”

One of the victims, criminal defense attorney Stephen L. Prevas (a brother of Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John N. Prevas), rues that the poker-game heist chalked up a host of offenses on the city’s violent-crime tables. “One event that takes 10, 15 minutes,” he points out in a telephone interview after the robbery, “and it skews the statistics.”

Another victim, Jason Thomas Lantz, was pistol-whipped during the incident, according to a police report contained in the court records. “It opened up a nice gash on the guy’s head,” Prevas recalls. “It was ugly, but everybody remained rather calm.”

The timing of the robbery, Prevas adds, was perfect. “Of any time to strike,” he says, “that particular time on a Thursday night was good, to maximize the benefits” of a robbery, because more than the usual amounts of cash were on hand.

Prevas, who represented two dealers charged with gambling in one of last November’s poker raids, would like to see poker legalized and regulated in Maryland. However, “when it is done in this fashion”—illegally, with lots of money on the table—he opines, “the biggest negative is that someone will get robbed. Any time you put a bunch of people with a lot of money in their pockets in one place, it is going to put a gleam in someone’s eye. I may start going to Atlantic City again—it keeps you honest.” Or, he adds, “I may just stay in games that are in someone’s home where I’m familiar with people.” At any rate, Prevas says, “as I understand it, the game will not reopen at that particular place.”

Prevas, who has been a member of the Maryland Bar since 1973, had $1,700 taken from him during the robbery and says that money is now in police hands. He contends that, while a poker game was in progress at the time, he wasn’t playing. “You can infer what you want,” he asserts when asked why he had so much money while watching a poker game. “But in the scheme of things, it’s not that big of a bankroll. I am used to having cash on my person.”

Another victim, real-estate investor Jeremiah B. Landsman, says he had $900 in his wallet when it was taken from him by the robbers. “I got most of it back,” he says, after the police busted the perpetrators. He, too, contends that he wasn’t playing poker. “Everybody knows gambling is illegal,” he states in a phone interview. “And I don’t want to do anything illegal.” As for the amount of money he possessed at the time, he explains that “I’m in real estate, so I always carry a lot of cash.”

While police found $23,827 in the robbers’ bag once they were detained, court records indicate that only $15,429 was attributed to the 18 individuals who were robbed. The court records don’t explain the discrepancy, but the remainder may have belonged to the game’s organizers. “I have nothing to say about the house money,” Landsman says when asked about the differing sums.

The arrested suspects are 31-year-old Todd Mikal of Glen Burnie and 27-year-old Ronnie Lee Jones of Parkville. Mikal is charged with 131 counts, including possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, although a search of court records shows that this is the first time he’s been charged with a crime in Maryland. Jones was charged with 127 counts in connection with the poker robbery. Court records reveal that, since 1997, Jones has faced 17 charges for crimes including auto theft, illegal firearms, assault, robbery, theft, and juror intimidation. He was never convicted, though in 1999 he received two years of supervised probation before judgment for assault.

According to the police report, the crime was interrupted after one of the victims, Wayne Byers Long Jr., flagged down a passing patrol car and stated that a robbery was in progress at 4600 Eastern Ave. Long’s Parkville address is an apartment a few blocks away from Ronnie Jones’ home. Attempts to reach Long, in order to ask him if he knows the suspect, were unsuccessful.

The robbers, Prevas recalls, entered the back room of the premises through a side door.

“They came in behind a guy who’d been playing in the game fairly regularly,” he says. “[Someone] saw him through the peephole [in the door] and let him in.” One of the robbers “was doing all the talking, and was very loud and intimidating, and the other was the bag man,” who put the cash and wallets into a sack.

Once Long had hailed the police, “in seconds there were bunches of police there,” Prevas continues. “The friendly perps were just finishing up their business, saying ‘Good night and thank you, gentlemen,’ or something to that effect, when three cops appeared at the landing with their guns drawn. One guy gave it up immediately, and the other guy took off out the door,” Prevas recalls. The police quickly chased him down.

“It was a sense of vindication that they actually got caught,” Prevas says.

State records show the owner of 4600 Eastern Ave. to be Pete Koroneos, whose other interests over the years include a strip club and a restaurant on the Block, a Fells Point bar, and the Broadway Diner, located just east of Greektown on Eastern Avenue. A sign for the diner graces the side of the nondescript building that hosted the ill-fated poker game, and is the only identifying mark on the newly painted building other than the street number affixed to the mailbox on the front door. Attempts to reach Koroneos at his Otterbein condominium, in order to ask him about the poker game held in his Greektown property, were unsuccessful.

Landsman and Prevas indicate that the property has long been a home for poker—though Landsman insists that it was “only for fun, only for chips, not money.”

“It’s a men’s club,” he continues, “where we would eat, drink, watch games. It was a really nice group of people and a really good time. I would go once a week. It was a great place to network with other professionals from Baltimore.”

Another victim, Gilbert Roden, is more direct. “It was a bunch of guys that get together and play poker,” he says over the phone.

The list of 21 robbery victims includes 11 people whose names also appear on the membership lists of two other poker clubs: the Owls Nest, which was raided by police last fall, and a related entity called the Orioles Nest (“Fouled Nests,” Nov. 23, 2005). Two of the Greektown victims had been arrested for gambling at the Owls Nest raid, and their charges were later dropped.

None of the poker-playing victims of the Greektown robbery has been charged with a crime—in contrast to the gambling charges that resulted from last November’s raids of the Owls Nest and another game at the Aces High Club on Harford Road. Without police comment, City Paper has not been able to determine whether the decision not to charge the gamblers resulted from O’Malley’s public statements that enforcing the law against poker games squanders police resources.

Landsman, however, says he believes “the police handled [the Greektown poker robbery] perfectly. It was a bad situation with the best possible outcome.” Nonetheless, he states, “obviously, these games draw crime. It’s unfortunate.”