Commercial Gambling, charged incorrectly 5 years ago

S

sailence

New Member
Jurisdiction
Georgia
Hey guys,

I wanted to get some input. I was charged with about 10 state felony commercial gambling charges over 5 years ago. We have not went to court yet.

The problem is that they charged us for commercial gambling when we in fact had Legal coin operated amusement machines (COAM). Ga has a specific law, OCGA 16-12-35, b, that carves out an exception for gambling devices. The crimes they have charged us with are inaccurate, the correct charge should have been a misdemeanor Take a look at OCGA 16-12-35 e,f & g.

Further more, we did not pay out cash. Let me explain - In GA you have two people involved to be able to have legal gaming machines. The first person is the location owner, these are usually your every day convenient stores etc... The second person, whom was us, buys certified legal COAM machines, monitors them & repair any faulty equipment. Both people must have a license from the GA lottery. They caught some of the locations that had our stores in it, mostly indians whom were not citizens. So they said that "We taught them to pay out cash" Most of these locations have been caught paying out cash before we were involved with them. We actually have text messages where the indians were telling their employee's if they ask say that "they told you to pay cash."

But there are no provisions that make that legal in any case, none that we are charged with anyway.

My question is this. Why would they not try this case in over 5 years? My lawyer wants to play the wait game, which now that its been 5 years they can't charge us with anything else like RICO or any other felony charges.

Can we not just go to the judge and say, "look, these guys are charged incorrectly, in fact its impossible for them to be charged with anything along these lines." To me this is obvious that it is wrong and we are being screwed. To shut down our business, take everything from us for over 5 years over someone who can't even read and understand GA laws?

Take a look at this appeals case the first 15 minutes if you fail to understand where I come from. www.gaappeals.us/oav/A19A0426.php


I will continue to listen to my lawyer, but I feel like he doesn't think it's best to fight this, almost like we are guilty and we want to wait and see and hope for a good deal. I just want to see if anyone else agrees or disagrees with the information you see here.

Thank you
 
You are represented in a complex case. Listen to your attorney.
 
Thanks for your reply. Let me ask you this, how is this complicated? The way I see it (and I don't have much knowledge of all these things) is that - it's completely the wrong charge, how can they even pretend that this can go to trial? I mean lets say they want to charge us for the cash payout, fine. They should have charged me with a misdemeanor, its too late to charge me now. How can you take one crime and apply a charge that isn't supported by law?
 
sailence said:
Thanks for your reply. Let me ask you this, how is this complicated? The way I see it (and I don't have much knowledge of all these things) is that - it's completely the wrong charge, how can they even pretend that this can go to trial? I mean lets say they want to charge us for the cash payout, fine. They should have charged me with a misdemeanor, its too late to charge me now. How can you take one crime and apply a charge that isn't supported by law?
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These are questions you should ask your attorney. S/He has all the fact of the case and would can answer accurately ...the volunteers of advice sites could only guess.

You should read the TOS of this site.
 
It would take a lot more time and information to assess the charges. I would tend to agree with your attorney at this point though. Time is your friend. Wait it out and it might just all disappear.
If you want to force action you can always withdraw your waiver and demand a speedy trial.
Your attorney has the specifics of the case. You really should direct all questions there, or else seek new counsel.
 
Thanks, we have demanded a speedy trial years ago. The DA always says he inst ready at court. Also can't afford another attorney, this one cost me $60,000 :(
 
Perhaps you should speak with your attorney about seeking dismissal if the state has not honored your constitutional right to a speedy trial.
This is assuming you have made the demand and have not agreed to or sought continuances.
The time frame you give does seem awfully long.
 
Thanks again, we were told that with the afore mentioned appeals court case possibly going to the supreme court that the judge and DA won't allow it to go to court until it is settled or denied by the supreme court.

If the supreme court of GA denies certiorari, do they basically affirm it making it case law? What I mean is I know if a supreme court rules on something it's basically the law of the land.
 
sailence said:
we were told that with the afore mentioned appeals court case possibly going to the supreme court that the judge and DA won't allow it to go to court until it is settled or denied by the supreme court.
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Who told you this?
The status of a pending appeal has nothing to do with your right to a speedy trial. Talk to your attorney about it. There may be good reasons for waiting, and there may be good reasons to demand they get things in gear.
If they were not ready to proceed against you years ago they should not have filed charges. Something seems amiss here.
 
My lawyer told me that. It's the new thing in GA, DA's are going after the easy assets they can get. These laws are complex to understand if you don't understand the gaming industry. But they basically do everyone like they did me, charged with 10 felonies, collect all your money and gaming cabinets as seizures, then they drop your charge to a misdemeanor and take all your stuff or a lot of it. Easy money for them. I encourage you to watch the first few minutes of that appeals court case above.

I am literally being screwed. I'll admit that maybe these COAM machines aren't the most moralistic things around, but we operated within the laws.
 

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