Indians’ Bingo Hall Raided in Fix Probe

Law enforcement officials in California, Nevada and New Jersey executed search warrants Thursday in an investigation of skimming from a high-stakes Indian bingo game in this San Diego County community.

Sixty state and local law enforcement officers raided the Barona Indians’ bingo hall here searching for evidence that bingo games were fixed to bleed off tens of thousands of dollars in prizes to predetermined winners, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department announced.

The raid was coordinated with Las Vegas authorities, who searched the Las Vegas home and business office of Stewart Siegel, manager of the Barona bingo games for about a year until he left two months ago.

Elsewhere, authorities served grand jury subpoenas on unnamed persons in Long Beach and in New Jersey, ordering them to appear before the San Diego County Grand Jury next month.

No arrests were made during Thursday’s searches.

The searches were initiated by San Diego County Sheriff John Duffy, who told a congressional subcommittee in September that his office “has the evidence” of organized crime involvement in Indian bingo. But law enforcement officials provided few details Thursday about the specific allegations at the Barona bingo hall. Affidavits in support of the search warrants were filed--and then sealed--in San Diego and Clark County, Nev., courts.

“We are seeking documentary evidence which would serve as proof of a skimming operation that has been operating out there in the past,” said Lt. John Tenwolde of the Sheriff’s Department.

The Barona Indians had mixed reactions to the search at their reservation, saying that they welcomed the possibility that it might uncover criminal wrongdoing because their profits from the games had been disappointingly small. But they also suggested that the raids might be a political move by Sheriff Duffy, a vocal opponent of the games.

The nightly games at the Barona reservation draw between 500 and 900 people who pay an average of $17 to play. Guaranteed cash prizes total $17,000 nightly, tribal manager Susan Osuna said Thursday.

Debate over the poor profit showing of bingo at the Barona Reservation has seriously split the Indian band, with free-flowing allegations of criminal wrongdoing among factions on the reservation.