Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Whistleblower unable to get casino bosses indicted Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 14:12:10 EST Message-ID: Lines: 106 \SE A \HD Whistleblower unable to get casino bosses indicted \BY Laura M. Litvan and Jim Keary \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES It's been more than a year since an employee of the Bladensburg Volunteer Fire Department's casino quit her $50,000-a-year, two-night-a-week job and went to authorities with allegations of profit-skimming by casino operators. She's been kicking herself ever since. "What it takes is for someone to turn, and that's what I did," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. "But look where that got me. . . . I lost every friend I had when I left there." The Prince George's County grand jury she testified before has not been asked to issue a single indictment, despite her allegations of theft by the Bladensburg casino's operators. Bob Holbrook, president of the Bladensburg VFD, said the lack of grand jury indictments is proof that his casino has not violated county rules. "There was nothing there to substantiate anything," Mr. Holbrook said. The former casino worker's decision to step forward gave authorities new insight into the operations of several county casinos. Besides supervising games at the Bladensburg VFD, she had worked at eight others. Her testimony was a key part of a grand jury probe of casino operations and it was used in a report last year by State's Attorney Alexander Williams that detailed abuses in unnamed casinos and called for substantial reforms affecting all 22 charitable casinos in the county. But her part in the Bladensburg probe highlighted the difficulties county officials have had as they try to crack down on the scandal-plagued casinos. She is one of the highest-ranking casino workers to come forward, law enforcement sources said, and they have no reason to doubt her. But she has little documentation to back up her claims, a problem that has plagued authorities in their investigations. The woman, like other witnesses in casino investigations, did not have access to the counting room where the night's proceeds were tallied and financial reports prepared. Her best "evidence" was cocktail napkins on which she scribbled her own record of proceeds from the games she supervised and later compared with the much-lower figures she said the casino reported. "It's not the kind of thing that would have been great evidence in court, if we could have used it at all," said Assistant State's Attorney Paul Benkert. There is no proof tying individual casino workers to any theft and unless someone else steps forward with concrete proof, the investigation is going nowhere, he said. The woman was introduced to the county's charitable casinos in 1988 by a friend who worked at the District Heights Volunteer Fire Department casino. "I taught myself to deal and got myself a job as a dealer," she said. From the outset, she said, the rules were being broken by some of the casinos. While casino workers are prohibited from accepting pay or tips for their work - both rules that are being challenged in court - she said she was paid $13 an hour when she started as a dealer, working at two casinos each week. The dynamics changed dramatically in 1989, she said, when police raids closed four casinos. That left more market and higher revenues for the remaining casinos, she said, and lured more professional gamblers who wanted a stake in the games. Volunteers were pushed out in favor of professional dealers who could deal the games more profitably. County regulations require all casino workers to be bona-fide members of the groups that operate the games, but she said that rule was routinely broken at casinos where she worked. In early 1990, she said she became a pit boss at Bladensburg, where she supervised the blackjack and pai gow dealers for $40 an hour and gained a closer glimpse into the day-to-day operations at the casino. She didn't like what she saw. Most disturbing, she said, were her superiors, who watched the counting room, keeping tabs on the night's revenues and preparing the paperwork to report the gross proceeds to the county. She began to suspect that the men in the counting room were not reporting all the proceeds and began keeping a secret list of the results her dealers reported, jotting them down on cocktail napkins and later recording them at home. She said she compared her results with figures the casino later reported to the county, finding a discrepancy over the course of 11 nights of more than $117,000. After six months, she quit her job and took the list to the police, who directed her to the State's Attorney's Office. Mr. Benkert said he has no reason to doubt her allegations, but said he has never had enough proof to ask a grand jury to for indictments. "Her testimony, in and of itself, is not sufficient to convict anyone of anything," Mr. Benkert said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM