19 poker players plead guilty; one requests jury trial

The first wave of card players charged in a recent high-stakes poker roundup pleaded guilty Monday, but another legal battle might be brewing over as much as $90,000 worth of cash and belongings seized during the probe.

Martin Orlando Reyes, whose Hanahan home was raided by sheriff's deputies April 4, was one of 19 people to plead guilty in Charleston County magistrate court to one misdemeanor count of unlawful gaming. In exchange, authorities agreed to dismiss additional counts against them. Magistrate David Coker ordered most to pay fines of between $154 and $257. Some 46 others still await a court date in the case.

Outspoken poker advocate Bob Chimento was the only person Monday to request a jury trial. Chimento is one of five people still awaiting trial on charges in a 2006 Mount Pleasant poker raid as well. He hopes his tribulations will generate support for changing a 200-year-old state law that bars games of cards and dice.

Reyes also supports a change, but he said he wanted to take responsibility for his actions and accept the consequences.

Still, his attorney, Mark Peper, said Reyes likely will fight a similar gambling charge pending in Hanahan in an effort to recover a host of items deputies seized from his house during the raid.

Sheriff's deputies said Monday that about $62,000 was seized that night, about $20,000 more than had previously been reported.

Peper said about $20,000 of that money came from Reyes' personal safe. Investigators also grabbed nearly $30,000 worth of furniture, electronics, picture frames, and personal mementos Reyes had received from his wife, he said.

Peper said authorities want to keep the cash and property, arguing that those items are the fruits of an illicit enterprise. Reyes insists the seized items had nothing to do with the poker games he hosted and he wants them back.

Peper, who represents several defendants in the case, said some of his other clients also lost big that night. Deputies seized $1,600 from the pocket of one player who is a landlord. The man had just collected the money from tenants and needed it to pay a mortgage. Another man, a store owner, lost business proceeds he was planning to deposit in a bank, he said.

Sheriff's Maj. John Clark said authorities are still sorting through the items seized to determine their value as evidence, and he could not comment on what, if any, property and cash might be returned in the end.

Peper said Reyes and other players can contest any seizures of assets in civil court, but a guilty plea could complicate those efforts.

Pleading guilty inn magistrate court to a charge of unlawful gaming were:

Mark A. Silverstein, 32

Tiffani L. Boone, 33

Tae Sun Cuzio, 47

Charles Creech, 58

Mike J. Dunlap

John E. Egonut, 34

Bruce A. Eisenhut, 65

George. W. Gardner, 58

Roy D. Gardner, 35

Curtis Heyward, 43

Harold R. Hutzler Jr., 44

Robert G. Keiger, 41

James Laing, 44

Martin Orlando Reyes, 41

Errol G. Samuel, 32

Joe Louis Simmons, 53

Paul W. Smith, 28

Robert L. Weaver, 68

Jeffrey O. Wendelberger, 37