WSOP Finalist, Richard Lee, Home Raided

Published: Friday, September 01, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

WSOP FINALIST'S HOME RAIDED FOR ALLEGED ILLEGAL ONLINE GAMBLING ACTIVITIES

Luxury goods and cash receipts impounded.


Reports in the San Antonio press this week claim that local police searched a home owned by Richard Lee, the recent winner of nearly $3 million at the World Series of Poker, for evidence of an extensive illegal Internet gambling operation.

"This operation is the largest here in San Antonio," the publication quotes local police spokesman Joe Rios, who confirmed the search warrant was served on a Shavano Park home in the 100 block of Geddington Street.

According to Bexar County Appraisal District tax records, the home belongs to a Richard Lee, who TV reports and a police source said is the same Richard Lee who was a finalist at the World Series of Poker three weeks ago.

Lee, who placed sixth in the WSOP Main Event (see previous Online-Casinos.com and InfoPowa reports) for $2,803,851, was apparently the target of a long-running investigation into what the newspaper termed an "extensive illegal Internet gambling operation." Specific details of the operation were not divulged.

"Our vice detectives have been conducting a comprehensive investigation where they believe proceeds from illegal gambling have bought a lot of items in this house," Joe Rios told WOAI, a San Antonio Television Station. "Anytime we have that type of investigation that leads us to believe there's illegal property in the house we have authority to seize it. We're taking all the vehicles and all the property inside the house."

Police had investigated the home for months, Rios said, before procuring enough evidence to secure the search warrant.

Inside the home, they found dozens of receipts for deposits on payouts from gambling proceeds, Rios said. "We're talking payouts well over $500 000," he said. "It was a pretty well-oiled machine they were running out here."

Although one of several houses searched, Rios called the home owned by Lee the "brains or the nerve center of the operation."

A money-counting machine; five Lexus cars, including two sports utility vehicles and three sedans; multiple plasma-screen TVs; and a large amount of cash were seized, he said.

No one was arrested, Rios said, "although now that we have found the evidence, we can move forward."