Search widens for gambler preying on casino customers

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001 | 3:14 a.m.

A police search widened Thursday for Michael Gray King of Sylacauga for preying on casino customers with a smooth line that leaves many of his victims penniless.

King even conned a bartender at one casino out of $27,000 last month. Jefferson County Sheriff's Sgt. Jimmy Stone declined to release the bartender's name because of the continuing investigation.

Stone said he's been conducting scam investigations 26 years and "I've never seen anything like it. It's not the worst fraud case, but it's one of the worst."

Stone said it didn't take him long to find King's motivation. In a 21-day period during the summer, King lost $37,751 at the Palace casino in Biloxi. In another week, King blew $33,225 there.

The Birmingham News reported Thursday that probation records list King's occupation as a part-time pressure washer who makes no more than $800 a month.

"He's like an alcoholic," Stone said. "He has to gamble."

Federal task forces in at least two other states are looking into King's escapades, Stone said.

In Alabama, King has been charged with first-degree theft of property for allegedly swindling a suburban Birmingham woman out of $2,700 after he befriended her at a Mississippi casino. In Elmore County, King is accused of bilking two people and two banks out of more than $150,000 in the past several months.

He's charged in Wetumpka with two counts of possession of a forged check and one count of first-degree theft and with the misdemeanor of impersonating a public servant. Police say he placed a phone call to Wetumpka investigators claiming to be a judge and asked police to cancel warrants against him.

"We've placed him on a nationwide pickup register and we never do that," Wetumpka police Sgt. Gary Edwards told th News. "There's no telling how many people he's taken advantage of."

Edwards said Wetumpka police started investigating King in the late summer when he opened a checking account with $50 and within 48 hours had written more then $10,000 worth of checks.

He struck up a friendship with a Wetumpka man and then stole the man's checks and forged them to steal nearly $12,000, Edwards said. In just one week, he cashed four checks worth $40,000 at Mississippi's Grand Casino, all on closed accounts, Edwards said.

A Grand Casino spokesman did not immediately return a phone message Thursday for comment.

King's criminal record in Alabama dates to the early 1980s, court records show. He's been arrested more than a dozen times on theft charges and served time in Alabama prisons.

Jefferson County began investigating King in October when a 32-year-old woman and a friend met King at a Biloxi casino.

"He was a high roller, a big spender, and they were impressed," Stone said. "Somehow he came back to Birmingham with them."

After several days with the woman, King told her he was trying to hide money from the Internal Revenue Service. He wrote her a check for $2,700 and told her to deposit it in her AmSouth account. She did so, but the next day King asked her to withdraw $2,400 and keep the rest for her trouble. She gave him his cash and never saw him again.

"The check was on a closed account from Talladega," Stone said. "He opened the account with $100 and they closed it after he started passing bad checks."