191 warrants issued in poker sting

Investigators have amassed 191 warrants against 65 people tied to a well-heeled Lowcountry gambling circuit that counted a Charleston police officer, a veteran prosecutor, a local school teacher and others among its members, authorities said.

Nine suspects surrendered to detectives Monday evening. Charleston officer Michael B. McElveen Jr. was scheduled to appear but did not because of a personal matter, according to authorities and his attorney, Andy Savage.

McElveen called police but arranged to appear at 6 tonight when another group surrenders, they said.

Twenty-seven people were charged with gambling offenses over the weekend.

Authorities expect to round up the remaining suspects in the coming days.

First Circuit Deputy Solicitor Don Sorenson, who was among those caught during a raid Friday night in Hanahan's tony Tanner Plantation, was charged Monday with four more counts of gambling violations. Solicitor David Pascoe accepted his resignation, and Sorenson apologized for his actions and for disappointing his family, friends and colleagues, said his attorney, Peter Brown.

"The judgment I have exercised has been poor and unacceptable," Sorenson said in a statement.

Martin Orlando Reyes, owner of the home raided by deputies and police, continued to insist that the police action was heavy-handed and that the weekly games were nothing more than friendly get-togethers involving professionals who like to play Texas Hold 'em.

"We knew it was against the law, but we didn't think the severity of it was a big deal," he said Monday. "It was just a bunch of guys playing cards. It's just a little hobby, something to release a little stress on the weekends."

Mark Peper, who represents Reyes and five others involved in the case, said he will recommend that his clients simply pay their fines for the misdemeanor gambling charges and devote their energy to changing a 200-year-old state law that prohibits dice and card games. "To me, it's a law that needs to be changed."

That may be. But Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon said it's still the law and he has a duty to enforce it. Area police have raided other games in the past, including a 2006 poker tournament in Mount Pleasant that netted 18 arrests.

"It may be an old law," Cannon said. "But so is murder."

Cannon and his officers also scoffed at the notion that these games were friendly tournaments. Authorities said the operation involved four locations, including Reyes' home, where they seized around $40,000.

Maj. John Clark said the poker games were well-organized, with paid pit bosses and dealers, and flush pots of money. Clark said it was not uncommon for $20,000 to change hands in an evening.

To drive their point home, sheriff's detectives displayed a host of items seized from Reyes' Tanner Hall Boulevard home and other properties that were searched. Several cases of poker chips, cards, table reservation markers, cash drawers and other gambling items filled one evidence room. In another, several poker tables with plush green velvet tops stood side by side. Also on hand was a disabled video surveillance system the poker players used to check who was coming to the door during their games, deputies said.

Cannon said the detectives began their investigation in May after receiving information about a high-stakes, casino-style operation in the area. They spent the next 10 months identifying those involved in the circuit and gathering evidence, he said.

Three suspects whose names have not been released started the poker games about a year ago and the enterprise soon blossomed, Clark said. Reyes joined in the play and at some point split off to start games at his home. That's when the pots really started to get plump, deputies said.

Reyes, who runs a heating and air business, doesn't dispute that these weren't penny-ante games. He said he and his friends are serious poker players who enjoy playing for real money. But he insists that no one was paid to deal cards and that the house didn't get a cut.

He said the players included a former police officer, a dentist, medical administrators, contractors and others.

Peper said the game that night was unusually large, but the amount of the money involved has been exaggerated. Half of the $40,000 seized that night came from Reyes' personal safe in his bedroom. Other money was taken from the wallets of the players, he said. "Forty-thousand dollars was not the amount of money that was in play."

Reyes' wife, Dawn, said she and her husband never imagined that hosting a card game could one day lead to gun-toting policemen in ski masks barging through the door. Dawn Reyes said officers placed her and her babysitter on the floor, cuffed them with plastic ties and then sat her beside her 5-year-old daughter. She was eventually let go without being charged.

"Why was I treated like someone busted at a crack house?" she asked. "Overkill is the word that comes to mind."

A visitor to the home that night, 35-year-old Qui Ho, had similar complaints. He and his brother, Quang Ho, went to the home at Reyes' invitation. Both brothers own nail salons called Regal Nails. It was their first visit to the home and they were interested in seeing some poker.

They were watching a basketball game on television when deputies burst through the door. The brothers thought it was a robbery. Quang Ho was pushed to the ground and hurt his back slightly. They were cuffed with plastic ties that scratched their wrists, and they saw others roughed up as well, Qui Ho said.

Cannon said he had received no complaints about deputies being too rough. He defended the display of guns and other raid tactics as necessary to ensure the safety of officers entering a home with no idea what potential dangers await them.

"I don't think you can send one person up to knock on the door and say 'Y'all are under arrest, leave the money on the table and file out the front door,' " he said. "It doesn't work that way."

The people involved in the games took a risk, and that risk comes with a cost, Cannon said.

Several players learned that lesson Monday night as they lined up to be arrested outside the Charleston County jail. It made for an odd spectacle: suspects and their attorneys swatting gnats and conferring with black-hooded detectives who sat at a long card table.

"I never have seen a cattle call like this before," said attorney Thomas Sanders IV, who represented poker enthusiast and car salesman Steve Meaux.

Reyes and his wife were back at home, but they're not making any plans for Friday night. "No more poker at my house," he said. "That's it."

Jill Coley contributed to this repor. Reach Glenn Smith at 937-5556 or gsmith@postandcourier.com Reach Nadine Parks at nparks@postandcourier.com.