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Seattle mayor's son is part of fed crackdown on defrauding casinos
Posted by The Oregonian May 24, 2007 13:56PM
Categories: Breaking News
Federal grand jury indictments unsealed Thursday charge 24 people -- including Jacob D. Nickels, son of Seattle mayor Greg Nickels -- with cheating casinos in several states, including Washington, out of millions of dollars by using technology and bribes to rig card games, according to the Associated Press.

Nickels was a pit boss at the Nooksack Indian Tribe's Nooksack River Casino in Whatcom County in the summer of 2005 when he accepted $5,000 to introduce one of the ring's alleged conspirators to crooked dealers, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday at U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The indictments, handed up in San Diego and Seattle, allege the racketeering enterprise dated from March 2002. Twelve people were named in two indictments in Seattle; seven of them were also indicted in San Diego.

Some of the 18 targeted casinos were in California, Washington and Indiana. Ten were owned by tribes.

The group used "false shuffle" cheating schemes during blackjack and mini baccarat games, the Justice Department said. The schemes involved bribes to casino supervisors and card dealers and use of blocks of unshuffled cards, the indictments said.

Members of the organization allegedly would signal a card dealer to do a false shuffle and then bet on the known order of the cards, winning more than $850,000 on one occasion. The indictments also alleged that the ring used hidden transmitters and special software to predict the order in which cards would appear.

The first indictment in Seattle was returned under seal in February 2006 and alleged a scheme to steal more than $1 million from the Emerald Queen Casino near Fife, Wash. The second, returned under seal in March, alleges the defendants took $90,000 from the Nooksack Indian Tribe's Nooksack River Casino near Deming, in Whatcom County, after three casino employees accepted money to rig mini-baccarat games.

Named in the Seattle indictments were Phuong Quoc Truong, Martin Aronson, George Lee, Son Hong Johnson, Ha Giang and Tien Duc Vu, all of San Diego; Canadian resident Van Tran; and Thongsok Sovan, Pheap Norng, Levi Seth Mayfield, Kasey James McKillip and Nickels.

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