Posted on: September 2, 2024, 06:13h.
Last updated on: September 2, 2024, 06:13h.
Authorities in Alabama were surprised when illegal electronic bingo machines impounded during raids on a bingo hall in the city of Selma went missing. They were even more surprised when the machines turned up at a different gaming venue in a different county.
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office has now charged five men with stealing the machines after they were found last week in Jay’s Charity Bingo in the city of Lipscomb, more than 80 miles north of Selma.
The terminals disappeared from the backroom of Selma Charity Bingo after the Attorney General’s Office conducted a raid last month and served a temporary restraining order on the business. The machines remained at the Selma venue while authorities waited to obtain a seizure order.
Brazen Theft
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told AL.com his agents knew they had found the missing machines when they raided the business in Lipscomb because they still had the evidence stickers on them.
“The brazen nature of stealing something that has an evidence sticker on it just shows you how far some of these people will go,” Marshall marveled.
Marshall said his office received a report from Dallas County’s Sheriff’s Department, which covers Selma, that the machines were missing. It’s unclear how they were traced to Jay’s Charity Bingo.
The businesses are not believed to be connected. It’s likely the thieves realized the machines would be locked up in the shuttered Selma Charity Bingo because they had read about the temporary restraining order in the news.
The vehicle in which we shut these businesses down was through a civil order enjoining the business from operating while we prove through litigation that those in fact are gambling machines,” Marshall told AL.com. “In essence, it’s not the historic go in and raid and seize the machines and carry them off,” he said.
Court records show that Charles Allen Robinson, 52, Charles Vanderford Jr., 61, Eric Daniel Hurt, 39, Michael Ray, 56, and William Patrick Humphries are all charged with third-degree burglary in the case.
Marshall said it was ironic that the suspects are facing a felony charge while the owners of Selma Charity Bingo will only be charged with a misdemeanor.
Legal Battles
The legality of electronic bingo machines was the cause of years of legal disputes in Alabama. Operators said the machines conformed to the state’s bingo laws while aping the look and feel of Vegas-style slots.
The matter was settled in October 2022, when the state’s Supreme Court determined that only traditional bingo games were legal.
Marshall, who had long seen the machines as “a menace to public health, morals, safety, and welfare,” began enforcing the prohibition shortly after. Multiple gaming halls offering illegal gambling were shut down on the same day as Selma Charity Bingo.
