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A North Carolina
man pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges he brought counterfeit
chips to an Atlantic City, New Jersey poker tournament in a
scheme discovered after he flushed $2.7 million of the chips
down a toilet in his hotel room.
Christian Lusardi, 43, of Fayetteville, could face five years in
prison at his Oct. 22 sentencing after pleading guilty to
trademark counterfeiting and criminal mischief before New Jersey
Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury in Atlantic County,
authorities said.
Lusardi's lawyer Steven Nelson did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
The chips were discovered on Jan. 16, 2014, two days after the
Borgata Casino in Atlantic City began hosting its "Winter Poker
Open," where Lusardi was a participant and where $800,000 of
fake chips with a bogus Borgata trademark had been used.
Authorities said Lusardi, fearing he might be caught, flushed
more than 500 fake chips down the toilet in his room at the
nearby Harrah's Casino Hotel, clogging a pipe and causing a leak
in the sewer line in two adjoining rooms.
State gaming authorities canceled the tournament on Jan. 18,
2014, when another 22 fake chips were found in a clogged toilet
in a Borgata men's room.
"When you gamble on a flush in high-stakes poker, you either win
big or lose big," Rick Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey
State Police, said in a statement. "Lusardi lost big."
Lusardi must also pay Borgata $463,540 for lost tournament
revenue, and Harrah's $9,455 for plumbing damage. He was
sentenced in March to five years in prison in a separate case
involving DVD bootlegging.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Andrew
Hay)
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