‘Winners’ Get a Big Spin, Go Directly to Jail

For more than 200 suspected and convicted felons, the offer proved irresistible--100 free lottery tickets, with a chance to win as much as $50,000 in cash.

But what was billed as a marketing survey to evaluate the state’s lottery games was in reality a sting operation run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The “Big-Play winners” ended up old-fashioned losers--booked at the sheriff’s Lakewood jail over the last five days on outstanding warrants charging them with everything from probation violation to manslaughter.

“A while back, we were talking over what sort of an operation to set up,” Sheriff’s Sgt. John F. Andrews said Friday, the final day of the sting. “We decided, let’s go with greed. It works every time.”

So the officers--frustrated thespians all--set up a storefront operation in Bellflower, complete with balloons bearing the logo of a fictitious lottery game called “Big-Play,” posters of “$50,000 winners” (actually pictures of undercover Sheriff’s Department clerks), and lots of jolly “Southbay Marketing Services” employees played by undercover deputies to welcome the “winners.”

Even after being handcuffed, some of the stunned targets of the sting continued to hope for good fortune.

“Some of them tell us they know they’re under arrest, but they ask, ‘Do I still get my tickets?’ ” Deputy Bernadette Roberts recalled. “One gentleman, even as he was being booked, still kept hoping he was on ‘Candid Camera.’ One woman asked if we could send her winnings to Sybil Brand,” the women’s jail in East Los Angeles.

Luis Moreno, a 24-year-old Cambria resident wanted for failure to appear at his scheduled arraignment on a drug-possession charge, was in many respects typical of those invited to the tidy offices at 10042 Artesia Place during the five-day sting.

Along with about 5,000 other Southern Californians wanted on outstanding warrants, Moreno had received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago.

“Congratulations,” the letter said. “You have been randomly selected by computer as a WINNER! Your guaranteed prize includes 100 FREE lottery tickets. Of course, this means $CASH$ for you, and a chance to spin your way to a fortune. . . . Simply call our Hotline at 1 (800) 468-PLAY as soon as possible.”

More than 500 answered the letter. “We even got a call from a guy in prison in Susanville,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Paul Scauzillo said. “He said he wasn’t getting out until Aug. 6. He wondered if he could come in then.”

Moreno, too, called the number and agreed to come by 9 a.m. Friday.

Like about half of those who made appointments, Moreno showed up as promised, to be greeted at the door by a group of friendly “Southbay employees.” They shook his hand, offered him some coffee and cookies and gave him a chair to sit in while they checked his identification to make sure he was the right Luis Moreno.

“We’ve had a lot of people who have tried to scam us,” Scauzillo said. “They walk in and try to pretend they’re someone who’s gotten one of the invitations. We have to send them away.”

While the deputies checked, Moreno rubbed elbows happily with a mob of news reporters and photographers, all invited by the Sheriff’s Department to watch the sting. Like the other “winners,” Moreno was told that the news media were there to record his good fortune. The newspeople played along with the game.

A couple of deputies posing as winners wandered out the front door, receiving the good wishes of all those gathered. Then a beaming Scauzillo burst noisily into the room.

“Congratulations!” he shouted. “Luis, you’re a winner!”

Offered a choice of Dodger or Angel tickets--”good seats, for Saturday’s game, you’ll be driven there in a limo”--Moreno chose the Dodgers. If he knew the Angels would be out of town, he never said anything.

And then, to a mounting crescendo of applause from an unseen audience in a room at the rear of the building, Moreno was led around a screen and into the hands of the law.

In the back room, to his chagrin, he discovered that the people who’d been clapping and cheering were uniformed deputies. Instead of lottery and baseball tickets, he got a set of plastic handcuffs and a booking slip.

Moreno seemed bewildered. Asked if he knew what was going on, he said he wasn’t sure.

Deputy Bob Mallon said that while most of those arrested glumly accepted their fate, some tried to rationalize.

“A handful said they knew it was a sting operation all along,” Mallon said. “So why did they show up?”

By nightfall Friday, about 250 people had been suckered in by the scam, with roughly 90% of them booked on felony warrants and the rest on assorted misdemeanor counts.

Most were cases involving the Sheriff’s Department, but a few stemmed from efforts by the Beverly Hills Police Department, which joined in after planning a similar sting.

In recent years, many police departments devised stings to bring in fugitives and collect evidence against those suspected of criminal behavior who otherwise had been able to elude arrest. Despite persistent publicity about these stings, law enforcement officers say they remain effective. In the case of those rounded up this week, deputies did not know the whereabouts of the fugitives but generally were able to find addresses of a relative. They sent the invitations to these addresses in hope that--because of their appeal--the mail would be forwarded.

Deputies also consider stings relatively safe for all involved.

“It’s a shotgun approach,” Andrews admitted. “But it’s economical, and no one was injured--no officers, no suspects. We consider it a success.”

The Sheriff’s Department emphasized that the sting was not officially connected to the California Lottery and said it had been cleared with lottery security personnel before it was undertaken. Lottery officials, while not encouraging stings using lottery materials, said they always cooperate with law enforcement agencies.

Despite its current lack of enthusiasm for such operations, the California Lottery once conducted a sting of its own. In March, 1986, 16 people suspected of submitting phony tickets were arrested after being lured to a bogus “second-chance” drawing in Sacramento that purported to offer prizes ranging from ocean cruises to cash.

Officials said the Sheriff’s Department had run at least one similar operation in the past.