FAYETTEVILLE -- A Rogers man who earlier pleaded guilty to federal charges of running a gambling business out of his home for several years was sentenced to probation and a hefty fine today in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville.
Robert Enos Rogers, 73, pleaded guilty in January to one count of operating an illegal gambling business. A count of money laundering was dropped at sentencing as part of the plea agreement.
Legal Lingo
Gambling
An “illegal gambling business” is defined by federal law to be a gambling business which:
• A violation of the law of the state in which it is conducted; and
• Involves five or more persons who conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct or own all or part of such business; and
• Has been or remains in substantially continuous operation for a period in excess of thirty days, or has a gross revenue of $2,000 in any single day.
Source: uslegal.com
Rogers operated a sports betting business at his house at 2711 W. Garrett Road in Rogers since at least Jan. 1, 2007, according to federal prosecutors. The business had at least five people involved to run it and grossed as much as $2,000 a day.
Rogers was sentenced Monday to three years probation, 18 months of which will be home confinement, and a fine of $250,000.
Rogers has a number of health problems, according to U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks.
Terms of his plea deal forbid Rogers from participating in gambling activities of any kind. He can't enter any gambling establishment and can't engage in gambling on the Internet, including fantasy sports betting.
Rogers forfeited a Ford Flex automobile and a pontoon boat; $11,257 in cash and jewelry seized from his home in Rogers; $156,700 in cash seized from three safe deposit boxes; $42,533 in cash seized from a bank account; and 2,356 shares of Pinnacle Bancshares stock seized from a safe deposit box.
A search warrant issued Feb. 3, 2016, and related court documents show Rogers and four others, who weren't named, were targets of a 10-month investigation.
The gambling operation came to light after the U.S. Justice Department's Financial Crimes Task Force received information about a financial adviser who was structuring withdrawals from his personal accounts at two local banks, court documents say. Structuring is the purposeful evasion of currency reporting laws and includes breaking down a single sum of currency exceeding $10,000 into smaller amounts, the warrant affidavit said. Transactions of more than $10,000 must be reported by banks to federal regulators.
"The total in structured funds, since 2012, exceeds $560,000," the affidavit says. Court documents identify the financial adviser as a bettor of Rogers' establishment, not a participant in the enterprise.
Bank records show wire transfers of at least $20,000, one in 2015 and one in 2016, from the adviser's account to an account of Rogers, according to the affidavit.
Rogers listed his house for sale, and investigators found photographs of a metal building on Rogers' property with what appeared to be seven slot machines, the affidavit said. The photographs also showed "10 leather chairs, a poker table with several ornate wood boxes lying on top of it, which would appear to contain chips."
An FBI investigator posing as an interested buyer toured the house Nov. 14, 2016. The investigator saw slot machines in the metal building along with two safes about 5 feet tall each, according to the affidavit. Another safe about 3 feet tall with poker chips next to it was found in a bedroom closet.
Seizures of trash on Dec. 8 and 15, 2016, found more notes describing gambling transactions. Betting averaged about $1 million a year from 2012 through 2015, the civil forfeiture cases claimed.
Printed and hand-written documents detailing sports betting were found as were "numerous hand-written notes detailing names, phone numbers, dollar amounts and sport team," the affidavit states.
NW News on 05/08/2018