Official: Suspect should have been nominated for Black Book

Friday, June 12, 1998 | 12:30 p.m.

Now Nikrasch faces charges in a second scam, this one costing Nevada casinos some $6 million.

"We did consider him, and in retrospect, we should have gone forward with it, but we didn't," said Keith Copher, chief of enforcement for the state Gaming Control Board.

The Black Book now contains the names of 31 people who are prohibited from entering the state's casinos.

Nikrasch, 56, received a 15-year prison term for the 1986 conviction but was released on parole in January 1991.

Nikrasch was arrested Tuesday, along with three others, in the latest scam.

In the 1986 case, U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben called Nikrasch a professional criminal and the mastermind of the plot.

Cooperating witnesses in the latest plot said Nikrasch was a computer expert who used a hand-held, concealed device that programs slot machines to win.

The complaint said Nikrasch has a slot machine at his residence and practiced his tampering techniques on the machine.

Authorities said the latest ring has been operating since September 1996.

The four charged in the latest scam were Nikrasch, Eugene Bulgarino, 65, and Joan Bulgarino, 56, all of Las Vegas, and Ronnie McElveen, 59, of Modesto, Calif.

A federal complaint charges each of the four with conspiracy, interstate travel in aid of racketeering and interstate transportation of stolen property.

The defendants are accused of carrying out one scheme on May 24, 1997, at the Rio hotel-casino to win a BMW automobile. A nominee winner - a person used by the defendants to win the vehicle - instead accepted $30,000 in its place.

According to the complaint, the defendants cheated a slot machine on Oct. 18 at the Luxor hotel-casino to win a Jaguar automobile. The winner then took the vehicle to Phoenix and sold it for $57,000.