It is unconscionable that Las Vegas Casinos are jailing 20,000 customers a year to collect civil gambling debts through the Criminal Courts, at a cost of Billions to U.S. Taxpayers, since 1983. They, covertly, passed a law making a casino credit marker (civil credit debt) a check carrying 2 Felonies and up to 14 years in a Nevada Prison is the amount is over $250.00. Nowhere on these markers, that are usually signed right at the gaming tables, is there any mention of the severe criminal penalties!
The Casinos do this to avoid the expensive cost of pursuing these debts through The Civil Court System like every other business in the United States. This allows the Casinos to give out gambling credit indiscriminately and we all bear the burden of collecting it through the misuse Nevada Criminal Justice System. If all businesses could collect their debt like this you could go to jail for missing your car payment or forgetting the make your Visa payment!
Currently, they are prosecuting a man that lost most of his life savings in Vegas Casinos. He signed 8 of these credit markers over a long weekend and now faces 16 Felony Counts and 224 years in prison; and he told them he was broke before he took the credit! The Casino admits they gave the man the credit as a courtesy and the Clark County District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski is still prosecuting him! All this is documented in his mans' preliminary court trial records. His trial is scheduled for April 2011.
Bernie Zadrowski runs the Clark County District Attorney's Office Bad Check Unit; affectionately called The Las Vegas Casino's Personal Collection Agency. These prosecutions are unconstitutional and are creating Debtor's Prisons; a practice outlawed over a century ago in England because it was against all public interest.
Ask Bernie and he will say the Bad Check Unit gets to keep 5% of what they collect for the Casinos'. He was quoted as saying he collected about 100 million dollars for the Casinos' in 2003; which means got to keep about 5 million dollars and the Casinos got 95 million. Hey, that sound pretty good to uninformed taxpayers. What he keeps hidden is the cost to collect the 5 million, which is at minimum 100 million dollars. This has been going on since 1983, you do the math (23 x 100 million = 2.3 billion, and that's at a minimum). Ask Bernie and he will tell you they don't tract the cost of arrests, extradition, transport, incarceration, prosecution, security and other related cost to the public. Ask him why and I suspect the interview will end soon!
Americans we need to find our voice and stop this egregious trampling of our constitutional rights, overcrowding of our jailsand massive waste of tax dollars!
We need to stop this insanity!
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