Huge Betting Ring Broken, Police Say : Crime: Betting agents allegedly used a scheme involving employees of popular Orange County bars and restaurants to collect and pay off bets.

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies declared Wednesday that the most lucrative illegal sports bookmaking operation in recent county history--generating annual profits in excess of $3 million--has been broken up with the arrests of seven men and one woman.

After serving search and arrest warrants at several locations in Orange and Los Angeles counties Tuesday night, investigators also seized a computer and ledgers containing the names of hundreds of suspected bettors who may face charges of illegal gambling.

Deputies said other seized records identified eight more suspected bookmakers who are currently being sought in what has been a five-month investigation.

“We’re still trying to determine the ringleaders,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Giles said. “We have to analyze the ledgers and computerized information. This was not your ordinary bookmaking operation.”

Sheriff’s Investigator Larry Nance said the betting agents used an elaborate scheme involving employees of popular bars and restaurants in Orange County to collect and pay off bets on professional and collegiate baseball, horse racing, hockey, football and basketball.

Investigators from the sheriff’s departments of Orange and Los Angeles counties teamed with Anaheim police to serve warrants simultaneously at residences in Anaheim, Bellflower, Lakewood and Norwalk. Warrants were also served at Spoons restaurants in Santa Ana and Tustin and at Shipmates Tavern in Cerritos, where some alleged members of the gambling ring were employed, Giles said.

Among the eight arrested were two Spoons managers--Michael Dunn, 38, of Tustin and Thomas Sullivan, 30, of Fullerton. Dunn is a manager of Spoons’ Tustin branch, while Sullivan managed the Santa Ana outlet, the sheriff’s spokesman said. Mary Scallon, 25, identified as a bookkeeper at Spoon’s Tustin branch, was also arrested.

The five others arrested on suspicion of bookmaking and conspiracy to engage in bookmaking are Robert Reed, 59, of Anaheim; Thomas Eric Stevens, 52, of Norwalk; Donald Richard Trava, 37, of Lakewood; Ian White, 30, of Bellflower; and Vincent Marchionno,40, of Bellflower.

Bail for Stevens, Reed and Trava was set at $25,000 each. Bail for the five others was set at $10,000 each.

None of the individuals arrested could be reached for their comments. Bob Clark, a manager at Shipmates Tavern, said that he knew nothing about the warrants served at the tavern and could not comment. Managers at Spoons Restaurant in Santa Ana and Tustin declined comment, referring all inquiries to the district manager.

Two of the eight arrested were allegedly taking bets at a Bellflower house when investigators arrived, Nance said. Orange County investigators also called out fraud detectives to help seize a computer from a Norwalk home and extract its information without losing any data.

While working undercover, Nance said he began placing bets with the group in May after the Sheriff’s Criminal Activity Unit received a tip about the allegedly illegal operation. Nance said bettors were given a telephone number to call and listen to the odds on a particular event. Then they were instructed to call another number to place their bets, he said. The betting agents constantly changed their telephone numbers to avoid detection by authorities, he added.

Callers to the betting line would have to use the code letters “TWA” to identify themselves as bettors and would then be asked their “flight numbers”--the caller’s individual betting code, Nance said. The operators would then ask bettors to state the amounts of their wagers.

Nance said he kept betting on the Los Angeles Lakers and the Oakland A’s and, ironically, won enough money to finance the sheriff’s investigation.

“I would place bets probably no larger than $300, and we kept winning,” he said Wednesday. “The whole operation was run on our winnings.”

Said Sgt. Giles: “We actually came out on the winning side. It was a cheap way to finance our investigation. It’s never been done before.”