18-Month Sentence Meted Out to Video Poker Figure

Thursday, July 25, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Aaron Mintz, 75, also was fined $15,000 Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Edith Brown Clement for his guilty plea to one count of racketeering conspiracy in connection with the operation of Worldwide Gaming of Louisiana.

Federal prosecutors said Worldwide Gaming was a front used by three organized crime families to infiltrate Louisiana's video poker industry. Worldwide Gaming had an agreement to distribute machines from Bally Gaming Inc.

Prosecutors said Bally Gaming was defrauded of as much as $10 million. Twenty-five men have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of federal charges related to the scheme.

Mintz, a former furniture store owner, told Clement his only remaining income is from a Social Security check. She rejected a defense motion to reduce his sentence to 16 months in a halfway house, but said he would be eligible for such a facility after serving about a year.

"I realize how stupid I've been," Mintz told the judge. "I'm wrong and I'm sorry."

Mintz was ordered to surrender Aug. 31.

New Jersey accountant Kenneth Jowaiszas, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to conduct an illegal gambling business, was placed on probation for three years and ordered to repay $15,000 to three investors in Worldwide Gaming.

Facing sentencing on Sept. 4 are Steve Bolson, a former New Jersey casino executive, and Christopher Tanfield, a former rock concert promoter. Both are former top officials of Worldwide Gaming. They were to be sentenced Wednesday, but their court dates were delayed last week.

Bolson has pleaded guilty to conducting an illegal gambling business and four counts of wire fraud. Tanfield has pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering.

In court Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone said Mintz, Bolson and Tanfield had given investigators "substantial assistance."

On May 1, state Rep. Buster Guzzardo, D-Independence, resigned from office after pleading guilty to one count of conducting an illegal gambling business. Guzzardo admitted receiving a fax machine from Tanfield, as well as allowing Worldwide Gaming to move his daughter's belongings when she moved to another state.

In a deposition given to the state attorney general's office as part of a license investigation into Bally Gaming, Tanfield said officials of Bally Gaming, accompanied by Mintz, met then-Gov. Edwin Edwards at a political fundraiser in February 1992. That was about six months before video poker machines were turned on in Louisiana.

"And the governor's quote was that if Mr. Mintz is involved in this company, Bally will get a license," Tanfield said in the sworn statement.

Edwards has never been implicated in the Worldwide Gaming investigation. Federal grand juries in New Orleans and Baton Rouge are now conducting additional investigations into the state's gambling industry.