Gambling News from http://www.timesdispatch.com/
A special prosecutor investigating illegal gambling houses in the town of Appalachia was surprised to discover that one of the alleged gamblers is his son.
"I guess I kind of expected it," Dylan McAfee, 25, said yesterday of his father's discovery of his illicit wagering.
Authorities arrived in Appalachia early last month with 38 search warrants, which they used to seize more than $400,000 in cash and assets and three buildings on Main Street allegedly used for gambling. Special prosecutor Tim McAfee said the gambling operations had been going on for years, with residents of the town and surrounding Wise County going into the buildings to play at gaming tables or to place bets on sporting events.
McAfee said he learned about his son's involvement from one of the alleged gambling operators.
"He said, 'You need to let me go or I'll tell about your son,'" McAfee said.
McAfee, who said he had never intended to prosecute any of the patrons, confronted his son, who said he bought a few tickets two years ago when a runner from one of the gambling operations showed up at his place of work in Big Stone Gap. The tickets paid out if they matched the numbers of the coming weekend's NASCAR race winner.
"I just did it for fun and did it very briefly," Dylan McAfee said yesterday. "I saw the guys down there getting them, and we were just 200 yards from the police station, so I thought, surely they're not doing anything illegal this close to a police station."
Tim McAfee's probe of gambling in Appalachia grew out of an investigation into election fraud during a 2004 Town Council race. Yesterday, Wise Commonwealth's Attorney Chad Dotson said he will probably take over the gambling prosecution while McAfee will continue the probe into the election and into corruption at the Appalachia Town Hall. Dotson said his possible takeover of the gambling probe has nothing to do with the involvement of McAfee's son but is related to his own determination that conflicts of interest that kept him from pursuing the election investigation do not apply to the gambling inquiry.
Dotson said his investigation will focus on the gambling operators, not the gamblers. "I don't anticipate charging any of the patrons," he said, "but it's too early to give an account of what my strategy might be."
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