BELL GARDENS : Ex-Casino Employee Gets 12 1/2 Years in Usury Case

A former employee of the Bicycle Club casino in Bell Gardens was sentenced Monday to more than 12 1/2 years in federal prison after being convicted of conspiracy, loan-sharking and extortion in connection with loans to gamblers at exorbitant interest rates.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon sentenced Hollman Cheung, 42, of Hacienda Heights to a maximum 151 months in prison and imposed a $150,000 fine. A federal court jury in September found Cheung guilty of nine criminal counts after prosecutors proved that Cheung and several associates would “loan money at usurious rates” to gamblers.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Marc R. Greenberg said Cheung agreed to establish a $100,000 restitution fund to repay victims who had been forced to pay up to 10% interest every three days on gambling debts. Victims who were pressured to deed over property can seek to recover their holdings, he said. Leftover funds will be donated to a treatment program for addicted gamblers.

Prosecutors charged that Cheung and others engaged in loan-sharking and extortion until February, 1993, nearly three years after the U.S. government seized the casino following proof that it was built in part with $12 million in laundered drug money.