MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2005

DA BROWN: THREE PLEAD GUILTY TO PROMOTING GAMBLING
AS PART OF $360 MILLION SPORTS BETTING PROBE
Former Head Groundskeeper at Shea Stadium Among Those Entering Felony Pleas

District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that three individuals – including the former head groundskeeper at Shea Stadium and a Long Island attorney – have pleaded guilty to felony charges in connection with a long-term investigation into sports betting.

District Attorney Brown noted that the defendants were among thirty-six individuals charged several months ago as participating in a Bonanno organized crime family gambling operation that took in more than $360 million over a two-year period. The ring allegedly ran wire rooms in Kew Garden Hills and Flushing, Queens, and off-shore in Costa Rica. Prosecutors estimated that the ring handled up to 2,000 bets daily – totaling $400,000 – on horse racing, baseball, football and other sporting events and booked over $2.5 million in one day during the 2005 NFL Playoffs.

District Attorney Brown identified the defendants who pleaded guilty today as attorney Marc Rovner, 42, of 15 Oxford Road in East Rockaway; Eric Bard, 38, of 119 Grohmans Lane in Plainview; and former Mets groundskeeper Dominic Valila,39, of 383 Plainfield Avenue in Floral Park, Long Island.

Appearing before Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter, the three defendants each pleaded guilty to Promoting Gambling in the First Degree. Valila and Bard were each sentenced today to three-year conditional discharges, and Valila was ordered to forfeit $9,200 in cash that had been seized at the time of his arrest. Sentencing for Rovner was adjourned to September 15, 2005, and, in addition, to forfeiting $31,039 in cash seized at the time of his arrest, Rovner was ordered to surrender his law license prior to sentencing.

In announcing today’s plea by Dominic Valila, District Attorney Brown noted that his office has received the full cooperation of the New York Mets organization throughout its investigation. “We have no reason to believe the Mets’ players, front office or managerial or coaching staff were involved. However, thanks to the coordinated efforts of the New York City Police Department and my office, we have managed to close down this highly lucrative gambling operation that benefitted organized crime, in particular the Bonanno crime family, to the tune of millions of dollars each year.”

According to District Attorney Brown, a 39-count Enterprise Corruption indictment was filed in Queens County Supreme Court in May that charged that the mob-run gambling ring operated three wire rooms that handled illicit wagers averaging $250 each at 136-72 72nd Avenue in Kew Gardens Hills; 147-19 Jewel Avenue in Flushing and at a shopping mall in San Jose, Costa Rica. Eleven of the defendants are also being sued civilly and have been named as respondents in a $360 million civil forfeiture action filed in Queens Supreme Court by the District Attorney's Special Proceedings Bureau. The civil forfeiture action alleges that the eleven defendants engaged in a criminal enterprise that promoted illegal gambling activities and generated illegal bets amounting to about $360 million from April 2003 to April 2005.

District Attorney Brown said that the criminal enterprise reportedly handled about 2,000 bets each day that generated gross revenues of nearly $500,000 daily, $15 million a month and $180 million a year during the 28-month period covered by the indictment. It is alleged to have relied on modern technology to generate its criminal proceeds, including computers, the Internet, e-mail and AOL instant messaging to safedepositsports.com and a toll-free telephone number that ran up a monthly bill of over $50,000.

According to District Attorney Brown, the ring used 25 “runners” – including Valila, Rovner and Bard – who maintained lists of bettors, paid their winnings and collected their losses and recruited new bettors to the bookmaking enterprise. It is further alleged that each of the ring’s “runners” in exchange for a share of the ring’s gambling profits managed his own group of bettors by accepting and relaying bets or by providing bettors with a phone number and runner's code for a particular wire room, then settling up their bettors' win-loss amounts.

District Attorney Brown expressed his appreciation to the detectives assigned to the New York City Police Department's Organized Crime Control Bureau, the District Attorney’s New York City Police Department Squad and his New York State Police Unit, and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance’s Revenue Crimes Bureau for all their assistance during the lengthy investigation.

Assistant District Attorneys Peri A. Kadanoff, Chief of Auto Crime and Insurance Fraud Unit, and Suzanne H. Sullivan, of the District Attorney's Organized Crime and Rackets Bureau prosecuted today’s cases under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Gerard A. Brave, Bureau Chief, and Marc P. Resnick, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.