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\tMIDWOOD \u2014 The owner of a longtime bingo hall with a graying customer base has been operating an illegal gambling ring worth millions of dollars and plans to abscond to Costa Rica in the near future, Brooklyn prosecutors say.<\/p>\n
\tAdam Sandler, the owner of Nostrand Bingo Hall in Midwood, his 26-year-old daughter and 13 associates are the subject of a criminal investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney\u2019s Office into an illegal gambling racket being run out of the hall.<\/p>\n
\tNo one has been arrested so far, but earlier this month prosecutors filed court papers in Brooklyn Supreme Court asking a judge to freeze Sandler\u2019s assets, including the bingo hall, residential properties in Long Island and upstate New York and a 2006 Mercedes Benz and 2006 Audi.<\/p>\n
\tThe prosecutors also asked the judge to freeze Sandler\u2019s bank accounts as well as accounts and properties held by his daughter, Marissa Sandler, and the 13 associates.<\/p>\n
\tIn all, prosecutors asked that more than $7.2 million in assets be frozen while the investigation continues, according to the filing.<\/p>\n
\tIn the court papers, prosecutors say Adam Sandler, 52, who has no relation to the comic actor with the same name, used the legitimately licensed bingo hall to mask the illegal gambling operation. Prosecutors say that since they began their probe the operation has raked in at least $4.1 million in criminal proceeds.<\/p>\n
\tProsecutors refer to Sandler, his daughter and the associates as criminal defendants in the court filing and say they could face felony charges ranging from money laundering to criminal possession to promoting gambling. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cIn essence, these crimes are being committed by an enterprise \u2026 that has wholly corrupted the legal process by which legalized bingo may be conducted in New York State by licensed charitable organizations,\u201d John Genovese, a prosecutor in the DA\u2019s asset forfeiture and crimes against revenue bureau, said in the court filing.<\/p>\n
\tBingo halls are a dying breed in the city. Only seven licensed halls, including Nostrand, still operate in the five boroughs, according to the state Gaming Commission. In 2009 there were 15.<\/p>\n
\tSandler\u2019s bingo hall is in a windowless brick building on a commercial strip of Nostrand Avenue. The exterior has signs saying \u201cBingo, Bingo, Bingo." The New York Times profiled Sandler’s hall in a 2010 requiem on vanishing bingo parlors.<\/p>\n
\tSandler told the Times he inherited the hall from his father, who started hosting bingo games in 1961 in a hall down the street.<\/p>\n
\tThe Times article came a few months after state regulators revoked the license of a Jackson Heights bingo hall after Queens prosecutors charged three operators with stealing $830,000 in bingo proceeds.<\/p>\n
\tThe Brooklyn District Attorney\u2019s Office declined to comment on the current investigation.<\/p>\n
\tThe court papers do not describe in detail what kind of alleged illegal gambling has taken place at the Nostrand Hall. However, state law requires bingo hall operators to run the games for charitable purposes. Generally, a charity will rent the space from the hall owner and collect the proceeds.<\/p>\n
\tThe Times article mentions Joe Torre East Highway Little League as one of the charities that rents Nostrand Bingo Hall.<\/p>\n
\tJoseph Arena, who runs the little league, is named as one of the criminal defendants in the court filing. Prosecutors also ask in the court papers that a judge freeze bank accounts connected to the little league.<\/p>\n
\tArena, 49, declined to comment.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s got nothing to do with us,\u201d he said of his organization\u2019s role in the investigation.<\/p>\n
\tThe court filing said that wiretaps caught Sandler talking about two stolen televisions worth $4,000 each. The criminal probe also revealed Sandler\u2019s plan of closing down the operation, according to the court filing.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe investigation has revealed that Sandler intends in the near future to wind down the illegal gambling scheme, liquidate the principal asset Nostrand Hall, and move to Costa Rica,\u201d Genovese says in an affidavit.<\/p>\n
\tWiretaps also picked up that Sandler is close to selling the hall for more than $3.1 million, according to Genovese.<\/p>\n
\tSandler did not return calls for comment. His daughter, Marissa, hung up when asked about the criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> Dr Crapology on March 11, 2015, 12:10 pm<\/p>\n \tDoc<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MIDWOOD \u2014 The owner of a longtime bingo hall with a graying customer base has been operating an illegal gambling ring worth millions of dollars and plans to abscond to Costa Rica in the near future, Brooklyn prosecutors say. Adam…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Before we got into casino advantage play, Rose and Doc went to a local bingo hall–we went maybe twice. Bingo for charity is one of the few legal areas of "chance" that you can do in Texas. Casinos are illegal. Doc did a little digging and found out that the rent charged for the building is was too high and that the actual charity, which does get money, gets very little. Frankly I think that although it is legal it is a rip off if one is trying to help the charity.<\/p>\n