A cage cashier has been arrested over a $500,000 heist in a Colorado casino after being caught on CCTV shoving bricks of $50k into a bag.
Sabrina Eddy, 44, was jailed on suspicion of theft for the incident that took place on March 12 at Monarch Casino Resort and Spa in Black Hawk, 34 miles west of Denver.
Eddy was working shortly after midnight as the cage cashier responsible for casino money when she received text messages from men claiming to be casino bosses, according to a Gilpin County District Court affidavit issued in support of a warrantless arrest.
They told her to take money from the casino to pay a lawyer, the affidavit said.
Surveillance cameras caught Eddy putting $50,000 bricks of money into a box and then loading the money into a gold-colored minivan.
Monarch Casino Resort and Spa (file photo). Sabrina Eddy, 44, was jailed on suspicion of theft for the incident that took place on March 12 at Monarch Casino Resort and Spa in Black Hawk, 34 miles west of Denver
She left the casino and later returned to take more money from the vault.
She then drove to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, as she had been instructed to do, and handed the money to a man near the emergency room.
She later called the casino and said she had taken money, adding that she thought she may be arrested.
‘Eddy continued to state that she had done nothing wrong, but she was just following orders that she believed had been put out by the casino,’ the affidavit said.
It is not known how much money was stolen. Monarch Casino Resort and Spa spokeswoman Erica Ferris said there is an ongoing investigation.
‘This latest case is the largest theft we can find, but small thefts occur regularly, and fraudulent acts are the crime we respond to the most, getting several every week,’ Colorado Department of Revenue spokeswoman Suzanne Karrer told the Denver Post.
In 1990, Colorado voters approved a Colorado Limited Gaming Initiative that legalized some gambling in the mountain towns of Black Hawk, Cripple Creek and Central City.
In 2003, a casino security guard in Cripple Creek was suspected of taking $300,000 from JP McGills Hotel and Casino, state regulators said.
In 2010, a robber who pulled out a gun and stole $28,000 from Central City’s Famous Bonanza was later shot and eventually sentenced to 224 years in prison.
In 1993, armed robbers stole $8,000 from the Gold Rush Casino and Hotel in Cripple Creek before they were arrested.
