One of the Alleged Scammers Has Pleaded Guilty and Agreed to Give Evidence.
A former dealer at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas pleaded not guilty to charges that he scammed the Las Vegas Strip casino. Bellagio claims that the dealer and his brother-in-law engaged in a scheme to scam the casino out of more than $1 million in “phantom craps bets” over the length of 2 years.
Clark County District Court Judge Valerie Adair set $160,000 for Mark Branco and $125,000 for Jeffrey Martin, his brother-in-law. The higher bail amount for Mark Branco signifies that he is seen as the ringleader of the scheme. Judge Adair gave both men two weeks to raise their bail money. Both are due back in court on October 20th.
Anthony Granito’s Hearing Postponed
For the time being, Judge Adair withdrew an arrest warrant for Anthony Granito, who is a third co-defendant. The withdrawal came after Granito’s lawyer, Dennis Myron Leavitt, said that his client was undergoing open heart surgery on Tuesday. The court date for Anthony Granito was set for November 3.
James Cooper Signs a Plea Bargain
A fourth co-defendant, James Cooper Jr., reached a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors and is now cooperating with authorities, said prosecutor Jay Ramen. James Cooper was facing 56 charges, but his defense attorney, Amy Chelini, reached a plea agreement which would have him plead guilty to one charge. He would face a likely 1 to 5 year sentence in state prison.
The cooperation of James Cooper makes it much more likely that Mark Branco, Jeffrey Martin, and Anthony Granito will be convicted and face long prison sentences. Even without an accomplice becoming a state witness, prosecutors likely had a strong case.
Bellagio’s Suspicions
Bellagio’s security staff became suspicious of the four men’s activities while watching surveillance. It seemed to them that two dealers were helping gamblers to cheat. MGM Resorts fraud-control agents got in contact with the Nevada gambling regulators. These two groups began to review security footage of the men.
Gaming Control Board Investigation
James Taylor, who serves as deputy chief of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, said that the state agents began to interview Bellagio employees, too. Regulators also began to watch the men’s financial transactions. In the end, it was determined they were trying to rob the casino.
As Bellagio dealers, Mark Branco and James Cooper would accept wagers from Jeffrey Martin and Anthony Granito, who pretended to be craps players. The men would make wagers after the results were known and be paid-off by the seemingly oblivious dealers, a technique called “past posting” or late betting. This is one of the oldest ways to cheat in casino gaming. It can be done without the dealer’s knowledge, but the method works much better if the dealer is in on the scam.
Alternately, Branco and Cooper would pay out, regardless of whether the men won or lost. This might be the act which gets them convicted.
Defense Lawyer Refutes Charges
Dennis Myron Leavitt, a defense lawyer in the case, said the dealers have been falsely accused. He wrote, “Not everybody who plays craps loses. Sometimes you win. And when you win, that’s not cheating at gambling.”
One question in the case that Leavitt’s remarks raise is whether Bellagio’s surveillance could tell the men were losing. If they had a pattern of winning every single hand, that would be highly suspicious. A jury would likely find it beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a crime, if every single roll of the dice paid out. The key word in “reasonable doubt” being “reasonable”, it is unreasonable to assume a gambler would win all the time.
That’s a point Dennis Myron Leavitt conceded when he said, “Sometimes you win.”
MGM Resorts Statistician Gives Perspective
MGM statistician Zachary Levine refuted those remarks, saying they overlook the overwhelming odds in this case. Levine said the odds of the group winning in the way they suggested are roughly 452-billion-to-1.
Logic suggests the men committed a crime. Logic does not always hold up in court, but empirical evidence does. If the Bellagio and Gaming Control Board agents taped the men favoring a couple of gamblers over months of play, it is going to be hard to defend those actions in a court of law. Even more than logic or empiricism, having one of the alleged accomplices to point the finger is going to make it hard for the defendants to deny the charges.
While James Cooper’s credibility will be damaged by the mere fact he admitted to wrongdoing, the defense would have to place doubt in the minds of the jury that Cooper either has a grudge against the other men, or that he was coerced by law enforcement or prosecutors to give a confession.
