Gambino mobster wins big at Atlantic City and Las Vegas poker tournaments
A Gambino wiseguy charged with conspiring to distribute marijuana went after a different kind of pot in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, law enforcement sources say.
While Drug Enforcement Administration agents probed his alleged buying and selling of several pounds of marijuana, Lee Fama, 44, won thousands in casino poker tournaments.
Fama hauled in $22,000 in three poker tourneys at the Borgata in Atlantic City this year, and $666 at a tourney during the summer at Las Vegas’s Rio hotel, poker Web sites report.
Fama, of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, is not on the list of 266 people excluded from New Jersey casinos. Nor is he on the much shorter list of people excluded from Nevada casinos.
Casino exclusion rules differ in the two states. New Jersey can bar “a career or professional offender.”
Nevada’s rules are more lenient — a spokesman for the Nevada Gaming Control Board said the state probably wouldn’t bar a convicted criminal from gambling, but might bar that person from operating or working in a casino.
Fama was arrested on the conspiracy charge Tuesday, and is expected to be released on bail later today.
In August 2011, Fama was caught on wiretaps buying two pounds of “high quality” marijuana from the cooperating witness, says a DEA affidavit.
In November, Fama sold another pound of marijuana to the same witness, the affidavit said.
His lawyer, Fred Sosinsky, said he's going to fight the drug charges, and denied his client is a made member of the Gambino family. A law-enforcement source say he is.
0 comments:
Post a Comment