- 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
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