Gambling News by Gambling Headquarters

A federal judge is convinced that John Neal returned to his role as the "invisible ... kingpin" of a multi-county video gambling enterprise shortly after being freed from prison. As a result of violating the conditions of his supervised release, the 69-year-old Delaware County resident will be imprisoned for two more years. "It's simply a shell game, a clumsy sleight of hand," U.S. District Judge John Tinder said Monday of Neal's attempt to hide his control of the gambling operation. "It's as though I'm re-hearing the same case from 2000." Neal was freed from prison on April 19, 2004, after serving 85 percent of a 42-month prison term for operating an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to defraud the IRS and money laundering. After his imprisonment, Neal was placed on three years of supervision by federal probation officers. Probably while he was still in prison, but certainly after his release, Neal headed a video gambling business that operated out of two dozen taverns in Delaware, Madison and Henry counties, according to assistant U.S. Attorney Christina McKee. This past September, an investigation by state excise and Anderson police culminated in a search of Neal's rural Yorktown home, where investigators found $1.5 million in safes and a desk drawer. Neal was jailed in Madison County on charges of video gambling, money laundering and corrupt business influence. Authorities also seized $1.4 million from Neal's bank accounts. Neal had told federal probation officers that he was receiving $71,160 a year in pension payments as the former head of the Teamsters union in Indiana. He admittedly lied to probation officers about his other income. Neither Neal nor his attorney explained to the judge where that other money came from. Because there can't be a probation officer in every tavern, the government expected Neal to truthfully report his income, which he lied about "month after month after month," the judge said. Excise police followed the money to Neal. "Follow the money," the judge said. "It's all over his house. I can infer by that fact alone" that it was illegally derived. "Cash was rolling in by the barrel." Neal had returned to video gambling "with a vengeance" after prison, said the judge, who accused the defendant of "laughing his way through supervised release," acting as a "puppet master" and "thumbing his nose at the law, at law enforcement and at this court." "In his view, he can walk all over the law," Tinder said. "It's stunning, shocking. He was inspirational to others in a negative way."