Copyright held by The John Cooke Fraud Report. Reprint rights are granted with attribution to The John Cooke Fraud Report with a link to this website.
A federal grand jury in Lafayette has indicted four men in the latest scandal to hit the video poker industry. According to the indictment, Raymond Mahfouz, an area businessman, and Robert Taccia, from Fort Worth, Texas, teamed up with John Patterson and Marshall Stockstill to mislead investors between March 1993 and January 1994. The $1.3 million collected was supposed to be funneled through Maesa Petroleum, destined for Allied Gaming and Southwest Video Poker. Investors were promised profits. Instead, a large share of the money allegedly landed in the pockets of Mahfouz and Taccia. And while Mahfouz and Taccia controlled the pursestrings of the operation, Patterson is suspected of being the front man for Allied Gaming, and Stockstill was brought in to lie to the State Police about the true ownership of the business because Taccia was a convicted felon. The indictment charged all four men with operating an illegal gambling business and charged Mahfouz and Taccia with wire and mail fraud and money laundering.
© Copyright 1996 Alikim Media