Sunday, February 11, 2007

A federal judge is convinced that John Neal returned to his role as the
"invisible ... kingpin" of a multi-county video gambling enterprise shortly
after being freed from prison. As a result of violating the conditions of
his supervised release, the 69-year-old Delaware County resident will be
imprisoned for two more years.
"It's simply a shell game, a clumsy sleight of hand," U.S. District Judge
John Tinder said Monday of Neal's attempt to hide his control of the
gambling operation. "It's as though I'm re-hearing the same case from 2000."
Neal was freed from prison on April 19, 2004, after serving 85 percent of a
42-month prison term for operating an illegal gambling business, conspiracy
to defraud the IRS and money laundering. After his imprisonment, Neal was
placed on three years of supervision by federal probation officers. Probably
while he was still in prison, but certainly after his release, Neal headed a
video gambling business that operated out of two dozen taverns in Delaware,
Madison and Henry counties, according to assistant U.S. Attorney Christina
McKee. This past September, an investigation by state excise and Anderson
police culminated in a search of Neal's rural Yorktown home, where
investigators found $1.5 million in safes and a desk drawer. Neal was jailed
in Madison County on charges of video gambling, money laundering and corrupt
business influence. Authorities also seized $1.4 million from Neal's bank
accounts. Neal had told federal probation officers that he was receiving
$71,160 a year in pension payments as the former head of the Teamsters union
in Indiana.
He admittedly lied to probation officers about his other income. Neither
Neal nor his attorney explained to the judge where that other money came
from.
Because there can't be a probation officer in every tavern, the government
expected Neal to truthfully report his income, which he lied about "month
after month after month," the judge said. Excise police followed the money
to Neal. "Follow the money," the judge said. "It's all over his house. I can
infer by that fact alone" that it was illegally derived. "Cash was rolling
in by the barrel." Neal had returned to video gambling "with a vengeance"
after prison, said the judge, who accused the defendant of "laughing his way
through supervised release," acting as a "puppet master" and "thumbing his
nose at the law, at law enforcement and at this court."
"In his view, he can walk all over the law," Tinder said. "It's stunning,
shocking. He was inspirational to others in a negative way."