Ex-Manager Alleges Management Firm Is Behind Bingo Rigging

Stewart Siegel, convicted former bingo manager at the Barona Indian Reservation, has charged that American Management and Amusement Inc. officials recruited him to rig games.

Siegel, 49, made the allegation in a written response to a county Probation Department sentencing report. American Management and Amusement Inc. operated games at the reservation.

Siegel pleaded guilty in April to rigging the games and is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday. The Probation Department report, which is still under seal, recommends a three-year prison sentence.

But Siegel’s attorney, John J. Kelleher, said in a telephone interview from Massachusetts that he will ask for a two-month postponement in sentencing because his client is suffering from cancer and is scheduled to undergo surgery next Friday. Kelleher said he will also ask for an evidentiary hearing at which he expects to introduce new evidence that he said will show that Siegel was only a “minor” player in the game rigging.

The response to the probation report was filed as a public document Thursday in San Diego County Superior Court. It argues that AMA “through its principals, Melvin Garb, Edward Drasin and Allan Drake, was an instigator of the crimes for which Mr. Siegel is convicted.”

Siegel’s response, written by Kelleher, alleges that Garb and Drake recruited Siegel to rig the games with threats and coercion. Law enforcement officials charged that Siegel rigged six games that totaled $139,000. But Kelleher said that Siegel actually rigged four games with prizes totaling $94,500.

AMA attorney Harry Hertzberg did not return phone calls to his Los Angeles office, and a secretary said that AMA president Drasin was gone for the day and could not be reached. Garb and Drake also could not be reached for comment.

The rigging did not involve bingo, according to Kelleher.

“The rigging was done in door prize games. Each player would get a key and at the end of the night he or she would attempt to open a box that contained a cash prize. Stewart (Siegel) gave the keys to friends of management, who got the cash each time,” Kelleher said.

But law enforcement officials said that it was Siegel who handpicked players, or shills, in the audience and split the bingo winnings with them.

According to the papers filed in court by Kelleher, AMA officials ordered the games rigged “to obtain tax-deducted hidden operating cash to assist the financially troubled business.” Kelleher said that Siegel has passed two polygraph tests administered by law enforcement officials where he made the same allegations.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Gary Schons, who prosecuted Siegel, confirmed that he passed the polygraph examinations but said that law enforcement officials could not “corroborate” Siegel’s charges.

In his written response, Siegel complained that the three-year prison sentence recommended by Probation Department officials is excessive and could result in his death because he is currently cooperating in three homicide and gambling investigations being conducted by several law enforcement agencies.

Kelleher said that Siegel’s life has been threatened twice by unidentified men since he pleaded guilty to rigging the games.

According to the documents, Siegel is helping police in Los Angeles and Las Vegas in their investigations of unrelated murders committed by professional hit men. Siegel is also cooperating with New Jersey State Police in a gambling investigation in that state, said the report.

Kelleher declined to go into detail about the investigations in which Siegel is cooperating with police, but Schons questioned Siegel’s motive for cooperating.

“Mr. Siegel has a history of selling information in exchange for favorable treatment for crimes he has committed,” Schons said. “But I will admit that he has also been very helpful to law enforcement with his information.”

The defense report also alludes to Siegel’s previous criminal record, which includes a felony wire fraud conviction and two “nuisance arrests and misdemeanor convictions.” Kelleher called his client’s report “a better version of the truth.”

“We made it fairly clear that we will not rest with the probation report that my client instigated the scam,” Kelleher said. “The probation report includes a constant pattern of overstatement of his involvement in the scam, and a pattern of understatement on his contrition and cooperation with law enforcement authorities.”

However, Schons said that he remains convinced that Siegel is solely responsible for rigging the games.

“His criminal conduct contributed to the problems (at the Barona Reservation) significantly. The victims of the crime were not AMA, but reservation residents and the people who attended the games . . . . Besides, why would Garb and Drasin, who are both millionaires in their own right, rig the games for less than $100,000?” Schons said.

Publicity about the rigged games has divided Barona Indians. Some have spoken out against the bingo games, and others have complained that the reservation has not received its full share of returns.