8 Found Guilty of Rigging Slot Machines

Eight people accused of heading the nation’s biggest slot machine cheating gang were convicted Thursday of rigging jackpots worth $1.6 million at Nevada and Atlantic City gambling casinos.

The defendants, including a Las Vegas couple, were convicted by a federal jury of all charges in a 17-count indictment involving more than 70 individual charges.

The verdict came midway through the fourth day of deliberations. Testimony in the case took seven weeks.

The indictment accused the defendants of “fixing” $1.6 million in jackpots between 1980 and 1983 by jimmying the machines to pay off by using wires, keys and other gadgets.

But authorities said the ring collected only about $600,000 because the casinos refused to issue the other payoffs.

Biggest Haul

The biggest haul included in the indictment was $188,885 taken at the MGM Grand in Reno in September, 1982.

John Vaccaro, of Las Vegas, described as the ringleader, was convicted of 17 charges, while his wife Sandra was convicted of the four counts against her.

Others convicted were William Cushing, Norm Alvis, Michael Kevin Brennan and Dorothy Snider, all of Sacramento; Paul Bond of Reno, and Stephen LaBarbera of Las Vegas.

Included in the indictment were charges of interstate travel in aid of racketeering, interstate transportation of stolen money, aiding and abetting, conspiracy to obtain money by fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States in collecting taxes.

The penalties range from 5 to 10 years in prison on each count.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Don Hill based his case largely on the testimony of Ross Durham, who had testified that he acted as the ring’s “mechanic” in opening slot machines and gently aligning their reels for pay-outs. Durham claims he rigged as many as 1,500 jackpots worth as much as $10 million.