Being irresponsible with your gambling and losing too much money is a bad thing. It can bring financial hardship on you and your family and it is the reason some people oppose gambling. If you do, though, it is best to come clean. What would be even worse would be to commit a crime by making up a story about burglary and sexual assault. That is exactly what one woman did, according to investigators.

According to investigators with the Riverside County sheriff’s department, a Southern California woman lied to deputies on August 9. On that date, she reported that a man ransacked her room and attacked her with a knife while attempting to sexually assault her. She said she was able to fight him off and gave a description.

The investigators noticed inconsistencies in the woman’s story, though. After they questioned her, the woman, who has not been identified, admitted to making up the story. She did it to hide the fact that she had lost money at a California tribal casino, though the amount lost is also unknown. Details about the extent of her gambling problems, if any, have not been disclosed.

The case has been referred to the prosecutors, who will decide whether to press charges against the woman for filing a false police report. Whether they do or not, this is a good time to reiterate that you should never wager money that you can’t afford to lose. If you need to commit a crime and concoct a story about a sexual assault and burglary, then that is a good indication that you shouldn’t wager the money. In that case, it’s best to not go to the casino. Responsible gambling is important at any casino, online and offline.

Some churches are against gambling because they think it is dangerous. Not only is it an irresponsible and risky way to use your money, they say, but it also attracts the criminal element. There is some truth to all of that, but I don’t think a Pennsylvania church expected it to be exemplified at their own bingo night.

Sacred Heart Church, located in Braddock Hills, Pennsylvania, holds charity bingo nights. Money made from bingo is used to fund the school. Tuesday night, however, the church parishioners and other community bingo players were surprised when the criminal element showed up to crash the party.

A masked man stormed into the church, brandishing a gun, and robbed the church. He stole approximately $300 from the cash drawer, money that was to fund the school, and then fled the scene. When Reverend Thomas Burke saw what was happening, he chased after the robber, who eventually disappeared into the nearby woods. Burke admits that chasing an armed robber isn’t a great idea, attributing the decision to the adrenaline of the moment.

Sacred Heart Church is a Catholic church located near Pittsburgh. The robbery occurred at approximately 6:30 PM.

Robberies at casinos, like at this church, are not actually very common. Like any bank robbery, though, they make a lot of headlines when they happen because of the sensationalism. In truth, anywhere that has money can be a target for robbers. Casinos, like banks, actually make poor targets because although they have a lot of money, they also have tight security. For that reason, sometimes robbers will go after a smaller amount of money if it is at a place with less security, such as a church.

On Thursday, the man who was indicted for allegedly robbing the Bellagio casino resort was charged with a separate casino robbery. Anthony Carleo was re-booked by Las Vegas police for the crime of robbing the Suncoast Hotel & Casino five days before the Bellagio was hit.

On April 21, Carleo pleaded not guilty to robbing the Bellagio casino. He is suspected of barging into the casino on December 14, 2010, wearing a motorcycle helmet to hide his identity. The suspect then robbed the casino at gunpoint, making off with $1.5 million in casino chips and fleeing the area on his motorcycle. Carleo was later arrested when trying to sell the stolen chips to undercover officers.

In the course of the investigation, Carleo was connected to the robbery of the Suncoast Casino on December 9. The man who robbed the Suncoast of $19,000 in cash used the same methods and appeared to be the same person.

The investigation also uncovered the fact that Carleo searched “tips for robbing someone” on his home computer three days before the Suncoast was robbed. Shortly before and after the robbery, Carleo accessed his cell phone within a short distance of the casino.

If stupidity was a crime, we would already have enough evidence to convict him. Stupidity is not a crime, though, so prosecutors will need more than that. There is enough circumstantial evidence that, along with him being caught trying to sell the stolen chips, he could end up getting convicted. The trial for the Bellagio robbery is scheduled for January 10, 2012. The preliminary hearing for the Suncoast robbery has not been scheduled.

Plea hearings are rarely interesting. Generally you know what the defendant is going to plea ahead of time, so there are no surprises. The defendant then enters his plea, the judge sets the date for the first day of the trial and we all wait for the next step. No drama there. That was not the case with the plea hearing for the alleged Bellagio robber, though.

Today in the Clark County (Nevada) District Court, Anthony Carleo pleaded not guilty. That was expected. The man is accused of robbing the Bellagio casino at gunpoint in December of last year, stealing approximately $1.4 million in chips. Carleo was arrested when trying to sell those chips to an undercover cop. None of that was surprising or interesting, but what happened next is.

The judge presiding over the case, District Judge Michelle Leavitt, informed lawyers on both sides of potential conflicts. It seems that she has a connection to both the defendant and the crime scene. Carleo’s father, George Assad is a municipal court judge in the state of Nevada. Therefore, he is a colleague of Leavitt’s. Not only that, but he is up for re-election this year and Leavitt and her family has publicly supported his campaign.

Judge Leavitt also has a connection to the Bellagio casino. Her brother is employed by them as a craps dealer, though he was not working there the night of the robbery. Judge Leavitt said that she has not spoken to her brother about the incident.

After disclosing both connections to counsel for the defense and the prosecution, neither side raised an objection. William Terry, the defense attorney for Carleo, said that there is no name on the witness list that gives them any concerns about Leavitt’s connection to the Bellagio. He also said that “most people in the judiciary know Judge Assad. So we have no issue with that.”

Christopher Laurent, the Chief Deputy District Attorney, said that the state is not concerned about the issues, either. If either party objected, Leavitt would likely be recused from the case and replaced with a different judge. However, since no one objected to the issues she disclosed, she will preside over the case.

Judge Leavitt set the court date for January 10, 2012. Until that time, Carleo will be remanded to Clark County Detention Center on $1 million bail. His attorney indicated that he plans to request that the bail be lowered.

NFL players right now aren’t practicing or getting ready for the upcoming season in any way because no one knows if there will be a next season. That gives them lots of free time, which isn’t a good thing. Over the years, we have learned that when professional athletes have too much free time, sooner or later someone is getting arrested. This time it was NFL linebacker Mike Vrabel.

According to the Associated Press, Vrabel was arrested on Monday and charged with theft from a riverboat casino in Indiana. There are few details as this point, but we know that Vravel was arrested at 5:30 A.M. on Monday for an incident that occurred at the Belterra Casino in Florence, Indiana. He was charged with a class D felony for theft and was released approximately 5 hours later on $600 bond.

So what did Vrabel do? I have no idea and neither does the AP. For that matter, neither does his current team, the Kansas City Chiefs, since they are forbidden from having any contact with players during the lockout.

Vrabel only offers his word that “it was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and I take full responsibility for the miscommunication.” In a statement released by his agent, Vrabel also said that he is confident that the charges will be dropped once he explains the situation to all the parties involved.

I would love to hear the explanation, because I can’t imagine any way a player could accidentally steal from a casino. How do you accidentally steal anything? I realize that after a long career with the New England Patriots, Vrabel probably has a skewed sense of morality, so maybe he just thinks that money he stole should have been his? I don’t know, but hopefully more details will be released soon.

It turns out Patrice Tierney will be going to jail after all. The wife of U.S. Representative John Tierney (D-MA) was sentenced yesterday to 30 days in prison followed by five months house arrest. In doing so, the judge rejected the sentencing recommendation of the prosecution and the deal they struck with Mrs. Tierney.

Last year, Mrs. Tierney agreed to plead guilty to four counts of aiding her brother with the filing of false tax returns in exchange for a lighter sentence. She had also been charged with money laundering, racketeering and running an illegal gambling business. She cooperated with the prosecution in a case that also involved two of her brothers, Robert Eremian and Daniel Aremian. There were 422 criminal counts charged in total against five people, including Mrs. Tierney.

Yesterday, during the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge William G. Young rejected Tierney’s deal with the prosecution, imposing the harsher sentence. It seemed that Young was making a point that the politically connected, like Mrs. Tierney, are not above the law. Judge Young said that he “cannot excuse a violation of the law of this severity.”

When her attorney insisted that Ms. Tierney was a good person who had simply made a mistake, the judge said that “people aren’t guilty of tax crimes because they make mistakes.” He then reminded Ms. Tierney that she was still getting a light sentence, since he could have sent her to prison for six months.

Patrice Tierney’s brother, Robert, ran an online gambling business in Antigua, where he relocated after his illegal gambling business in Massachusetts was raided in 1996. Patrice Tierney had traveled to Antigua to help her other brother, Daniel, care for his family and run his business, which involved collecting gambling debts for Robert. The money they made from the gambling business was sent to relatives in the United States. Patrice Tierney, who did the taxes and financial paperwork, reported that money as commissions, never disclosing the true source of the income.

Prosecutors in the U.S. state of Washington have filed a motion to seize $553,000 from a Canadian-based payment processor due to its link to online poker. Last month, federal prosecutors in Seattle filed a civil complaint against Secure Money, Inc., asking a U.S. District Court to order the payment processor to transfer the balance of six bank accounts to the government.

The state of Washington has a ban on online gambling, specifically including online poker (which some contend is not gambling). According to the prosecutors, Secure Money sent payments to online poker players in Washington for using online gambling sites in violation of state law.

Seven Washington residents are named as having received their online poker winnings from online gambling sites via payments from Secure Money, Inc. In addition, in January of 2009, an agent with the state’s Gambling Commission began playing poker at the Ultimate Bet online poker website. In July, he requested to be paid $200 in winnings and he later received a check from Secure Money, Inc. The check listed the payment as being for “payroll.”

Secure Money, Inc. is a Canadian company but also does business in Las Vegas, Nevada and Tampa, Florida. They are in a lot more trouble than with Washington’s Gambling Commission, though. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney stated, “Processing checks that represent the funds derived from illegal gambling…constitutes a violation of the money laundering provisions” in federal law.

That means that because Secure Money processed payments for a type of transaction that is illegal in Washington and was used as a go-between for the gambling websites to make the payments look like “payroll” transactions, they are guilty of the federal crime of money laundering. In addition, the payment processor does not have the required licenses to operate a money transfer business in Florida or Nevada.

Though a seizure warrant has been issued for the funds in question, no criminal charges have yet been filed against Secure Money or any online gambling website. In addition, there is no word of the Washington residents being charged.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Back in June, a convenience store in the U.S. state of Georgia was raided for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business. After customers complained about the gambling activity, authorities conducted an undercover operation and caught the convenience store giving out cash prizes for the video poker machines. Amin Khimani, the then-owner of Sam’s II Shell, was arrested and charged with one count of commercial gambling and one count of keeping a gambling place. Six video poker machines were seized by police.

On Thursday, after customers again complained about the gambling activity, an undercover operation revealed that Sam’s II Shell replaced the video poker machines and was again giving away cash prizes. The clerk running the store at that time, Rajendra K. Dave, was arrested and charged with two counts of commercial gambling and keeping a gambling place. Khimani was not implicated the second time around.

In the state of Georgia, people are allowed to play on video gaming machines as long as they are not playing for monetary prizes. Prizes for store merchandise, such as alcohol, cigarettes or lottery tickets is permitted by law.

Khimani was evicted by the owner of the convenience store’s building after the June arrest and therefore is not believed to have had any knowledge that the gambling operation had been resumed. Dave was also arrested in June when he worked for a different convenience store in Georgia. His wife may also face charges because her name is now on the business license for Sam’s II Shell.

It’s not exactly news when Democrat politicians are involved in tax evasion, corruption and fraud. Really the only thing that makes the Patrice Tierney case worth mentioning is the racketeering charge. Otherwise, it’s old news.

Patrice Tierney, the wife of Massachusetts U.S. Representative John Tierney, will plead guilty to charges of racketeering, money laundering and running an illegal gambling business. She was recently named in an indictment that involves two of her brothers, Robert Eremian and Daniel Eremian. In total, the group was indicted on 422 counts involving five people. Patrice Tierney faces up to three years in prison as well as fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to the indictment, Patrice Tierney traveled to Antigua, where she helped her brother, Daniel, care for his family and seemed to be involved in his business. Part of that business was collecting debts for online gambling businesses owned by Robert Eremian. Much of the money made by the gambling businesses in Antigua was paid out to relatives in the United States. Tierney admitted to paying her brother’s taxes, reporting earnings from the gambling business as “commissions” rather than “illegal gambling” income.

Though the U.S. Attorney’s office has not proved that Tierney knew Eremian’s business was illegal, she has admitted full responsibility for being “willfully blind” to what he was doing. Most likely, it was a situation where she knew the income could not have been coming from where her brother said, but she was unwilling to question him.

In addition to the current indictment, Robert Eremian has a history of tax evasion dating back to 2002. Again, Democrats and their families not paying taxes is kind of par for the course. Patrice Tierney is pleading guilty and cooperating with the investigation in order to receive leniency.

No direct connection between the alleged crimes and Congressman John Tierney has been made. The Massachusetts seven-term Congressman faces Republican Bill Hudak in his re-election campaign this November.

Monday morning a man confessed to murdering an Atlantic City casino manager out of revenge. Mark Magee admitted in court to murdering Ray Kot, a shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, last year. His reason for the killing: the casino was cheating him.

Mark Magee, who has a history of depression, said that “casinos, not just the Taj Mahal but all the casinos in Atlantic City, are cheats.” Magee stated that he believes that “the tables are electronically controlled” to cheat the players out of money. Even more outrageously, in court while Kot’s widow sobbed, Magee called for an investigation into the practice of the casinos to prove his point.

Throughout years of playing at the Taj Mahal, Magee became convinced that the casino games, especially roulette, are electronically rigged to make the players lose. After all, what else could explain his lack of success? Well, I can think of one: Roulette has a high house edge. In fact, every casino game has a house edge. If they didn’t make money in the long run they could not stay in business. Every player understands they they’re playing against the odds, or at least I assumed every player did. Magee seemed to think that the casinos were supposed to provide a means for players to make easy money and when they didn’t, he sought vengeance.

Last year, Magee came to the casino armed with a .38-caliber revolver. He waited in the casino for hours before Kot walked away from the crowded casino floor. Once he was isolated, Magee moved in and shot Kot, fatally wounding him. This is the first murder committed at an Atlantic City casino.

Even if the casino was cheating their customers – which I have no reason to believe is true – and even if Kot was in on the scam – which I have no reason to believe is true – Magee’s actions would still be unjustified. If he thought he was being scammed, he could have gone to the police, since the casinos are tightly regulated by the government to ensure that they are fair. Instead, he took a man’s life.

Magee’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 12. He faces at least 30 years in prison.