
Video Poker 247
- Medford Claims Blind Eye
It seems that former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford didn’t see
the video poker corruption that was going on at his office. According
to his attorney, Medford had little involvement in the regulation of
video poker, and had no idea that there was corruption going on at
all.
His attorney, Stephen Lindsay, told the jury that he had attended a
public meeting in 2000 with the video poker operators when North
Carolina passed their law that regulated them. Allegedly he told them
that they were to “run clean stores with no fights or complaints” and
that they could only work with one company at a time so that they
wouldn’t have to worry about “turf wars” among the video poker machine
owners.
But then he allegedly turned over all of the video poker regulation to
Lt. John David “Johnny” Harrison and worked on being sheriff. He is
accused of conspiracy to commit extortion among other illegal acts as
they regard to video poker within his jurisdiction.
They claim that he took bribes of up to $5,000 at a time from the
video poker operators and in exchange he gave them information that
would keep them from being discovered by law enforcement personnel.
Assistant US Attorney Richard Edwards said that this case will prove
Medford’s video poker involvement.
Back to
May 2008 Archive