Effort to Revoke Bingo Hall’s License Begins : Woodland Hills: Identity Inc., which has grossed $28.7 million since 1982, is focus of several inquiries, including one into whether officers misused charitable funds.

Proceedings began Thursday to revoke the license of the largest-grossing bingo parlor in Los Angeles, with city officials releasing affidavits by four ex-workers of the Woodland Hills operation that they were illegally paid up to $300 a night from skimmed cash.

At stake in an administrative hearing is the bingo license of Identity Inc., a charity headed by Edith Ryan, a woman known at City Hall as the “Queen of Bingo.” Identity has grossed $28.7 million in bingo proceeds since 1982, nearly 20% of the bingo take citywide.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the state attorney general’s office has launched a separate civil investigation of Identity to determine if the organization’s officers misused charitable funds and that the Los Angeles Police Department also is investigating possible criminal misdemeanor violations.

A search warrant was served on Identity and Ryan on Aug. 13 and numerous records were seized at that time, according to Detective Roberta Squire of the Police Department’s administrative vice unit. Squire said the records were being shared with the state attorney general’s office.

Deputy Atty. Gen. James Cordi confirmed Thursday that his office was investigating Identity. Laws enforced by his unit, the registry of charitable trusts, primarily seek to prevent officers of charities from diverting charitable donations for their personal enrichment, Cordi said.

Identity is licensed to operate a bingo hall on De Soto Avenue near Oxnard Street to raise money to support a free physical and psychological therapy program for disabled young adults.

Ryan, 64, denied in an interview Thursday that she had ever paid her bingo workers and contended that, to the contrary, she was the victim of a plot by volunteer workers disgruntled by her refusal to pay them illegally and by her attempts to crack down on their pilferage of charitable funds.

“They’re lying,” Ryan said of her accusers. She said she runs a “good, strong, legitimate charity” and that several Police Department officers who worked off-duty for Identity as security personnel would testify on her behalf.

It is illegal under state law for anyone to receive a “profit, wage or salary” from the proceeds of a bingo game, all of which, after expenses, are required to go to charity. The “wisdom of this law is to prevent bingo from becoming commercial gambling,” said Robert Burns, chief of the city Department of Social Services. Burns’ department regulates charitable fund-raising activities in the city, including bingo games.

City records show Identity grosses about $300,000 per month in bingo proceeds. Since February, 1982, when it first offered the games, Identity’s gross bingo proceeds have represented 19.7% of the money raised by the city’s 72 charities with bingo licenses, Burns said.

Identity operates three games a week and generally has nearly 350 people playing per game, the nonprofit corporation has said in documents filed with the city department.

On Aug. 19, Burns ordered Identity to suspend its bingo operations and notified Ryan of his intent to revoke its license. Soon after, Ryan appealed Burns’ order, allowing Identity to continue operation while the case is heard.

Burns said he moved to revoke Identity’s license after former workers approached him with stories of receiving illegal salaries.

Sylvia Dean of Sherman Oaks, listed both as secretary and chief financial officer of Identity on various public documents, claimed that she was paid “$300 per night (three times per week)” in a sworn affidavit taken by the department Aug. 13.

“I know bingo proceeds were used to pay me because I was there when Edith Ryan took the money from sales,” Dean’s affidavit said. “Payment was always in cash at some time during the evening. Most times I was paid in $50 or $100 bills unless I asked for smaller bills.”

City bingo regulators are entitled under the law to audit the books of bingo games to protect against illicit payments. Dean contended, however, that Ryan threw away records for one table where “extra games, early birds, late birds and jackpots are sold.”

Cindy Houseman of Simi Valley said she was paid $100 per night and that a code was used by Ryan to indicate when her pay would be available under a first-aid kit. She said that “Edith Ryan puts the money under the box and tells us to go get our ‘paperwork.’ (‘Paperwork’ means our pay.)”

Also attesting to the payments were Debra Basham of Van Nuys and Jeanne Maxey of Sherman Oaks.

All four of the women declined initially to talk to reporters. But Houseman finally said Ryan “always says she’s the victim of thieving employees.”

Because it is a misdemeanor under state law to pay workers of a charitable bingo game, the Police Department is also investigating the women’s charges, Squire said.

Due to a mix-up in finding a court reporter, no testimony was given in the case Thursday. Additional hearings, however, were scheduled for Oct. 25, 29 and Nov. 30.