Fine, suspended sentence for poker house owner

PALMER — The man who owned and helped run a poker house on Bogard Road made his last appearance in court Friday.

James McDowell, 33, formerly vice principal in charge of activities for Chugiak High School, received a two-year suspended sentence and will pay a $5,000 fine.

A suspended imposition of sentence, according McDowell’s attorney, Josh Fannon, means McDowell will have to comply with all of the rules the court lays down for him, including no drinking to excess and obeying all laws. If McDowell complies, he will have no conviction on his record. If he doesn’t, he can be taken back to court and sentenced through the normal procedure.

Fannon had harsh words Friday for prosecutors working the case.

“I think this is the most despicable waste of resources and court time that we have ever seen,” Fannon said.

He noted that surveillance of his client’s operation had lasted eight months and that 27 police officers took part in the raid. In the end, he said they turned up nothing besides some otherwise law-abiding folks playing cards.

“We’ve got thousands and thousands and thousands of man hours into an investigation that turned up nothing,” Fannon said.

On the state’s side, Assistant District Attorney Alison Collins had little to say besides explaining the sentence. The case was initially assigned to Richard Payne, who is now in private practice in Wasilla. Afterwards, she said she came to the case at its tail-end and did not have any comment on Fannon’s assertions. Her boss, Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak, was unavailable for comment before press time.

Overall, eight people were arrested in the case. They were charged with possessing gambling records, furnishing alcohol to a gambling enterprise, promoting gambling and possessing gambling devices.

Andrew Conn, 27, Eric Dubois, 29, Jeremy Ferreira, 29, Dennis Grogan, 24, Mohammad Hereimi, 30, and Hollie Metzler, 28, have all been sentenced, effectively ending their cases. Samuel Henry, 31, is due for sentencing April 16. He and McDowell are the only two who pleaded to felonies. None of the eight will serve jail time.

McDowell, in his statement to the court, responded to a lot of what had been said publicly about his operation, dubbed the Mat-Su Poker Crew.

He admitted there were cameras watching the door, but they were there as a safety precaution as poker houses in Anchorage had been robbed at gunpoint.

The operation, he said, was out in the open, visible from Bogard Road. The crew handed out fliers and maintained a Web site. He said lots of upstanding residents and community leaders played in their regular games and tournaments.

As to the extent of the operation, there were four active tables going when the house was raided, not nine to a dozen as had been reported before. And about the 10 tables stacked up and stored at the house? They were being stored for a women’s nonprofit group that ran charity tournaments, he said.

The house was taking a cut — the key difference between it and other legal poker games — Fannon and McDowell conceded. But the 5 percent rake from each pot went to paying rent on the building and keeping the lights on. A tip jar at the tables was used to pay for refreshments.

As for the contention that the state was simply removing a nuisance from the community by raiding the poker house, which sat next door to the Boys And Girls Club, McDowell said he would have stopped had he been asked.

“No officer or official ever came and let us know that what we were doing was illegal or wrong,” he said.

In the end, McDowell said he thought he was running a legal operation, a safe, low-stakes environment “for people to enjoy playing poker.”

He was wrong and accepts responsibility, he said.

Superior Court Judge Eric Smith, in handing down his sentence, said it is not his duty judge whether this was a proper use of police resources or give an opinion as to gambling operations. He was there to accept the plea deal and the sentence, which he did.

Accepting McDowell’s assertions that he thought the games were perfectly legal, Smith said, “Turns out he wasn’t acting legally and, for better or for worse, he violated the law.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.