Casino cashier pleads guilty to theft

Bill Gang

Thursday, July 15, 1999 | 11:09 a.m.

Over the course of nearly two years, a slot booth cashier at Binion's Horseshoe hotel-casino walked off with more than $1 million and used part of it to put a down payment on a house, buy a sport utility vehicle and establish trust funds for her children.

Rita Kolstad used the rest of the funds, pilfered on 278 occasions, for living expenses, gambling or in her boyfriend's business, Deputy District Attorney Valerie Adair said Wednesday.

Kolstad pleaded guilty Wednesday to five counts of theft and is facing the possibility under the plea bargain of six to 15 years in prison, although probation is an option. Sentencing is set for Oct. 12 in District Judge Sally Loehrer's courtroom.

Kolstad walked out the door with 23 percent of the cash that passed through her booth on her swing shift between September 1995 and May 1997 and no one caught on until there was an unusual in-depth audit, Adair said.

Kolstad simply pocketed cash and destroyed money transfer and credit clips that recorded the purchase of coins from her change booth, Adair said. Since the remaining cash and documents balanced, internal bookkeepers were unaware of the losses, the prosecutor said.

Duplicate documents were generated, but they went into a different bookkeeping system and the figures were never compared, Adair said.

At the same time, she added, the Horseshoe was in the throes of a family feud over ownership of the downtown club and financial controls were limited.

Once Becky Behnen took control from Jack Binion of the casino their father, Benny Binion, had founded, a full audit was conducted and the losses were revealed.

While Kolstad pleaded guilty, she did so under a legal provision that does not require her to admit responsibility.

Kolstad's attorney, Lamond Mills, alleged at an earlier court hearing that a change person couldn't have been responsible for all the missing money.

"That money was taken out at a higher level and now they're looking for someone to put the blame on," Mills said.

In the plea bargain, Kolstad is not being required to make restitution for the thefts in part because the Horseshoe was reimbursed $750,000 by its insurance company.