Regulating internet cafes
After several weeks of crafting a final draft for a proposed law regulating internet cafes in Belleview, the City Commission voted Tuesday to move the proposal forward.
Legal News
Regulating internet cafes
After several weeks of crafting a final draft for a proposed law regulating internet cafes in Belleview, the City Commission voted Tuesday to move the proposal forward.
That’s how much time sweepstakes businesses have to shut down before Burlington’s fully-enforced ban on the the gambling games goes into effect.
Burlington police announced the decision Tuesday.
Internet cafes soon will no longer have free reign in Belleview.
Inside Belleview City Hall on Tuesday evening, Mayor Christine Dobkowski and members of the Belleview City Commission voted 5-0 to approve a new city ordinance that will regulate how internet cafes are allowed to operate within city limits. Read More
TAVARES, Fla. – Tavares police raided an internet gambling café Monday afternoon, seizing cash and computers.
Police served a warrant at “Dreamers” along South Duncan Drive in the Dora Canal Plaza off State Road 19.
Police said they’re tired of these businesses opening up in Tavares, since this is the second one that has been raided in the past few months.
The Sting takes place!
ELYRIA — Several individuals were indicted on charges in connection with last month’s raids of internet cafes throughout Lorain County.
10 secret indictments in connection to the raids were unsealed, according to court documents. Audrey Cole, 45, of Stow; Roscoe Blankenship, 46, of Clinton; Edward Simon, 46, of Canton; Edward Brown, 54, of Barberton; James Cole, 52, of Stow; Diana Scribner, 52, of Amherst; Zachary Brown, 28, of Barberton; Donald Pasters, 52, of Grafton; Joshua Woehler, of Barberton; and Kimberly Strader, 55, of Amherst, were indicted on charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and charges linked to operating a gambling casino.
Whether it is legal to own and operate “games of skill” is still ambiguous on the state level, but some local leaders have decided to go ahead and prohibit these electronic gaming businesses often referred to as “fish-table” games.
The City of Lexington recently issued a six-month prohibition on new permits for businesses operating table-mounted video games that pay out rewards, usually cash, for accumulating points by “catching” electronic fish.
Video gambling continues in North Carolina
RALEIGH, NC
The state House is trying to beef up penalties for illegal sweepstakes operations, but it’s unclear if the Senate will consider the bill just days before the scheduled end of lawmakers’ session.
The House Finance Committee on Tuesday morning introduced a rewritten version of House Bill 471 that would make it a Class G felony to possess or operate two or more electronic gaming machines. Possession of the machine is already illegal — the result of a lengthy effort by the legislature to ban internet sweepstakes parlors — but the initial charge is a misdemeanor.
Players Choice in the Sheffield Center Plaza was one of the businesses raided by law enforcement agencies from around the county and the Ohio Casino Commission.
Local internet cafes were raided throughout Lorain County Wednesday as part of a coordinated investigation by a host of state and local agencies.
Law enforcement, including Lorain, Amherst and Sheffield police, Lorain County Sheriff’s deputies, the Ohio Department of Taxation Criminal Investigations Division and the Ohio Casino Control Commission, raided several internet cafes, including one in Midview Plaza in Eaton Township and three in Sheffield Township along North Ridge Road.
MARION COUNTY, Fla. The Unified Drug Enforcement Strike Team executed search warrants after an investigation revealed illegal activity going on inside of five different internet cafes in Marion County.
Meghan Shay who’s the spokesman for the force said, “UDEST is specifically targeting internet cafes that are engaging in illegal gambling activity, which means they have games of chance that they’re carrying out, not games of skills.”
FAYETTEVILLE, NC
The alleged mastermind of an illegal gambling enterprise denies any involvement even as he prepares to begin serving an 18-month sentence in federal prison.
In an interview earlier this week, Kiet Vo, 50, of Fayetteville, denied involvement in the four large-scale underground video-gambling establishments that were shut down in 2015 after a 16-month investigation by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.
The case was referred to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina and Vo was indicted for conspiracy to conduct an illegal gambling business and conducting an illegal gambling business. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge, according to court documents.
Vo denies any involvement in owning or operating The Bubble Tea Room on Yadkin Road, the Bi-Da-Pool on Bragg Boulevard, Blazing 7′s on Hope Mills Road and the KV Internet Cafe on South Reilly Road. A fifth location operated briefly on Bonanza Drive.
Vo maintains he only repaired the video-game machines for those who ran the businesses.
“I was just the handyman,” Vo said.
His fee was 25 percent of the week’s profits from the machines. Sometimes, Vo said, he made money or he might only collect $1,000.
Most of the time, Vo picked up his payment, he said, but on occasions those operating the video-gambling outlets would deliver them or he would have his wife, Phong Truong, pick them up.
In 2015, a friend left a party at Vo’s home on Dodge Drive and was stopped by an “undercover officer” and asked about illegal gambling, Vo said. The friend called Vo after returning home and told him about the incident. Vo said he then warned to business owners to shut the businesses down.
“They told me if the law was coming, they will run from the law,” Vo said, referring to co-defendants. “I’m not the person breaking the law or that kind of person.”
Vo said he agreed to a plea deal because he feared his family would be separated. In November, court documents show, Vo was not allowed to speak with his wife about the case and was not allowed to live with his family.
In February, after Truong pleaded guilty, Vo asked to be allowed to live with his family, court documents show, and his request was granted. Truong is awaiting sentencing.
His wife and two children live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In February, Vo sought to have travel restrictions requiring him to remain in North Carolina modified to allow him to live with his family. U.S. District Court Judge Louise W. Flanagan approved the request in February.
Vo sought permission in February to move back to Fayetteville and to live with a third-party custodian and his request was approved. He said his jail sentence begins June 28.