Former Gaming Control Board agent pleads innocent in scheme

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

RENO -- A former agent for the State Gaming Control Board has pleaded innocent to 23 felony counts involving $32,000 in slot machine cheating at three casinos in Washoe County.

District Judge Peter Breen has set Dec. 2 as the trial date for Ronald D. Harris, 39, who also faces criminal charges in Las Vegas and Atlantic City for rigging slot machines.

The judge also set Dec. 2 as the trial date for Harris's ex-wife, Victoria Berliner, of Fullerton, Calif., who has pleaded innocent to eight counts of cheating, and her alleged accomplice, Lynda Doane, of Las Vegas, who has pleaded innocent to four counts.

Deputy Attorney General David Thompson said Harris was employed by the board from 1983 to 1995 as a slot cheat expert. A co-defendant, Reid McNeal, 41, of the Cayman Islands, pleaded guilty in Reno earlier and has agreed to testify against Harris.

McNeal admitted to collecting jackpots from slot machines rigged by Harris at the Excalibur and Westward Ho hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. And he said he collected a $10,000 jackpot for Harris at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas on Dec. 3, 1994.

Harris, a computer expert, developed a secret program in the state lab to insert in slot machines to produce jackpots. Other field agents of the board, unknowingly, would visit casinos to test slot machines and in the process install the altered program.

In Washoe County, Harris, with his co-defendants, are accused of collecting illegal jackpots from the Crystal Bay Club at Lake Tahoe, Fitzgeralds and the Comstock, both in Reno.

Gaming officials were first alerted to Harris and McNeal when they tried in December 1995 to collect a $100,000 keno win at Park Place in Atlantic City. McNeal had purchased 10 keno tickets for $10 each and selected eight numbers on each of the tickets.

When McNeal tried to collect his winnings, he had no identification on him. And when authorities accompanied McNeal to his hotel room, they saw Harris. But they didn't realize Harris was involved.

The security guards left with McNeal and when they returned, Harris was gone. He was later arrested in Las Vegas as he got off the plane from Atlantic City.

Harris reportedly had the confidential code used in the keno game manufactured by Imagineering Systems Inc., of Reno. Using a laptop computer, Harris determined what numbers would be selected in a particular keno game.

He used his co-defendants to go out and play the slots and collect the winnings.