Opinion ID: 3001485
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Operation of the Grand Palace

Text: Once the games commenced, each IAWV post was ostensibly running one of the weekly gambling sessions. In reality, though, the veterans had little control over the games; their contribution was limited to selling pulltabs, bingo cards, and raffle tickets to the hall’s patrons. According to the IAWV members who testified at trial, the veterans did not control which games were played. They were not allowed to count the money generated by the games or be in the back room where the money was kept. They had no idea how much money was gen- erated by the business. And they did not have any control over the checking accounts where the proceeds for the games were deposited. The real power over the games—and, most importantly, over the revenue generated from the games—was exercised by those who had access to the Grand Palace’s back office, all of whom were non-veterans: Shlifka, Bingham, and Shlifka’s daughter Laura Dostal, as well as Cozzo and Useni. Shlifka and Cozzo would determine which games would be played. After a veteran had completed selling his allotment of pull-tabs, raffle tickets, or bingo cards, someone from the back office would collect the gaming proceeds from the veteran and take the money to the back room. There, the money was collected and taken by Fred Bingham, the bookkeeper for the Grand Palace and a non-veteran, to deposit in accounts he controlled. BeNos. 06-1978 & 06-2107 9 sides handling the money, Bingham, along with Dombrowski, filled out the quarterly bingo and pull-tab returns for the IAWV posts. On those returns, the number of pull-tab games being played was vastly under-reported, as was the revenue generated by the pull-tab games. Cozzo, along with Shlifka, appeared to be running the hall. According to the testimony of the veterans who worked at the Grand Palace, as well as one of the undercover state revenue agents sent to investigate the Grand Palace’s operations, Cozzo announced the rules of bingo prior to the session, sold bingo cards, verified winning bingo numbers, administered the raffles, sold pull-tabs, announced the pull-tab numbers, took the pulltab proceeds to the back office, brought out new boxes of pull-tabs to sell, paid the veterans, and controlled the pull-tab machine on the wall, removing money from it and fixing it when it malfunctioned. In contrast, Useni worked primarily in the concession area of the Grand Palace. However, witnesses testified that he also verified winning bingo cards, sold pull-tabs and raffle tickets, provided raffle tickets to the veterans to sell, paid the veterans, walked around observing the workers and players, and installed, restocked, and removed the money from the pull-tab machine. Both Useni and Cozzo were involved in obtaining the pull-tabs from Marotta. Marotta testified that Cozzo often ordered the pull-tabs from Marotta and picked them up at Marotta’s place of business. Marotta stated that Useni also picked up the pull-tabs on occasion. Marotta further testified that he sold a tremendous volume of pull-tabs to the Grand Palace—massive in comparison to other bingo operations. Undercover state revenue agents sent to investigate the Grand Palace 10 Nos. 06-1978 & 06-2107 observed that the number of pull-tab games played at the Grand Palace exceeded the number allowed by law, which varied depending on the type of game played and total payout for the session. Since pull-tabs are required to be registered with the state, Cozzo, along with Shlifka, approached Marotta at one point and asked him to supply them unregistered pull-tabs. Marotta testified that he agreed to provide them with unregistered pull-tabs but that, unbeknownst to Cozzo and Shlifka, he continued to sell them registered pull-tabs.