The Attorney General for the American state of California, Rob Bonta (pictured), has announced the signing of a settlement agreement regarding allegations that the owner of the now-shuttered Lucky Lady Card Room had been conducting an illegal bookmaking operation.
The western state’s chief law enforcement official used a Thursday press release to explain that the plea deal is to see Stanley Penn pay a fine of $125,000 and have his local gaming license revoked so as to avoid further prosecution over claims that he had helped the San Diego establishment to illicitly accept, process and settle sports wagers. The Democrat detailed that the 83-year-old defendant has also agreed to reimburse the California Department of Justice for the costs of pursuing its investigation to the tune of $50,000.
Serious situation:
For its part and local television broadcaster KNSD-TV used a Friday report to disclose that Penn was federally indicted alongside 13 others in 2016 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asserted that Lady Luck Card Room was being used to conduct an illegal sportsbetting operation. The service purportedly pronounced that associated wire taps had moreover uncovered serious allegations of money laundering and racketeering in addition to the attempted bribery of San Diego politicians.
Powerful penalty:
The broadcaster additionally divulged that eleven of Penn’s co-defendants had pled guilty while fellow offender Sanders Segal was sentenced to a 37-month prison term in 2018 and obliged to simultaneously forfeit some $222,000 allegedly gained from bookmaking, money laundering and the collection of unlawful debts. This whole matter purportedly led to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control issuing an order against Lady Luck Card Room that encompassed new reporting requirements, the hiring of an independent manager and the removal of the former owner.
Read a statement from Bonta…
“Anyone who gambles knows there are rules to every game and when you don’t play by the rules, you pay the price. Today, a San Diego cardroom is closed because its owner chose to operate outside of California’s laws and allow an illegal sportsbetting operation to be run out of his business. When a person decides profits are more important than the law, we must take action and enforce the law.”
Era ends:
Located in the Colina Del Sol neighborhood of California’s second largest city, the eleven-table Lady Luck Card Room was closed in March of last year as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic and will now not re-open courtesy of a local 1983 law that forbids the sale, lease or transfer of existing licenses. The broadcaster finished by reporting that the plea deal, which was endorsed by the California Gambling Control Commission, has therefore shuttered San Diego’s last remaining card room and called time on a poker business that had been open for well over 40 years.