Mississippi Casino Trips Funded by Government Cash, Officials Claim
The ex-director of Mississippi’s Tunica County Airport was arrested this week after existence indicted for embezzlement. He allegedly used some ill-gotten authorities money at local casinos.
Eric Konupka inserted the airport’s debit card at ATM machines to draw off cash in for personal expenses, according to a statement from Mississippi State Auditor Shad White. The money was used not only if at gaming properties, but also to buy food, self-propelled supplies, free energy drinks, cigarettes, and to compensate for meals at restaurants, Patrick Victor Martindale White claimed.
The Magnolia State Attorney General’s Office will prosecute the case. If convicted, Konupka could be sentenced for upward to 20 years inwards prison.
He could be ordered to pay thousands of dollars inwards fines and make water return on the ill-gotten money. group A demand missive said he owes $9,259. That includes interestingness and expenses, Patrick White revealed.
Whether it’s the largest public humbug in the nation or an employee using a authorities purchasing scorecard to purchase a few yard dollars’ worth of items for themselves, we testament contain the dividing line on any abuse of taxpayer money,” T. H. White said inward the statement.
Konupka was arrested inward Florida. He worked at the aerodrome betwixt 2003 and 2021, according to online records.
The aerodrome is owned by the Tunica County Airport Commission, a regime entity. The airdrome is situated some 40 miles to the south of Memphis, Tenn.
Murder Suspects Sought
In another crime, Mississippi River constabulary are noneffervescent hunting for II suspects inwards finally month’s lethal shot at the Scarlet Pearl Casino. A stolen railway car connected to the criminal offense was located inward nearby Alabama. It had been go under ablaze.
Nicholaus Craig, 36, was fatally maimed patch in a rental machine parked in a lot crossways from the D’Iberville, Miss. gaming property. Craig and a girlfriend were staying at the casino hotel to celebrate his birthday. The pair ate dinner that dark at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
Later, Craig left hand the hotel for a mount around 2 am, ostensibly after having support nuisance from recent surgery. While he was inwards the car, he was shot once.
Remains of Craig’s rental car, a sullen drab Nissan Altima, were discovered later in an apartment complex in Prichard, Ala. The elevator car had been mark on fire, destroying to the highest degree of it, WXXV, a local TV station, reported.
The victim’s overprotect wants justness for her son’s death.
I need to appealingness to someone who knows who did this to him,” Sumorris Tucker told WALA, a local TV station. “It’s the likes of a hole in my mettle and I need justice.”
Casino Proposal Moves Ahead
Elsewhere inwards Mississippi, in August, a casino resort hotel proposed for Long Beach tin go frontwards followers a ruling by the MS Supreme Court. The propose has been on bear for several years piece courts brush up the proposal.
Real land developer Jim Parrish wants to build a $180 zillion cassino holiday resort crosswise from Long Beach Harbor. Maxfield Frederick Parrish owns Parrish’s Restaurant & Lounge on the tidelands, as advantageously as the vacant holding crossways US Highway 90.
Parrish wants to build his gambling casino on the earth magnetic north of Highway 90. He plans to fulfill res publica riverboat gaming laws requiring casinos to follow within 800 feet of the Gulf Coast’s tight high-water line. He will accomplish that by tethering the resort’s primary election body structure to Parrish’s Restaurant.
The state previously argued that since the programme does non include existent gaming within 800 feet of water, the holiday resort should non be sanctioned past the Magnolia State Gaming Commission (MGC).