BLACK HAWK, Colo. — A little-known state law enforcement agency is now looking into the biggest case it has ever investigated.
Agents with the Colorado Division of Gaming arrested a cashier at the Monarch Casino in Black Hawk, alleging she stole half a million dollars in cash earlier this month.
The theft is the largest casino heist on record in the state since legal gaming began in 1991. The case investigation will be handled by the Colorado Division of Gaming's 60 sworn agents.
"While on duty they have full authority as peace officers," Ron Kammerzell, the former head of the division, said. "Part of their job is to patrol the casinos looking for criminal violations and also regulatory violations."
But the $500,000 theft at Monarch is by far the largest Division of Gaming agents have faced. A department spokesperson said the second-largest theft occurred in 2003, when a security guard was suspected of stealing $300,000 from JP McGills casino in Cripple Creek.
The third-largest was in 2019, when someone stole $28,000 from Black Hawk's Famous Bonanza Casino.
And in 1993, a trio of robbers made off with $8,000 from the Gold Rush Casino in Cripple Creek.
> Watch: 9NEWS report from 1993 on Cripple Creek casino heist
Typically the casino cops enforce the state's gaming regulations, conduct underage compliance checks and deal with patron disputes, Kammerzell said.
"If there’s a patron that has a dispute on a payout at a blackjack table or a dispute on a slot machine, they would come in and investigate it and make a determination of what’s the proper disposition," he said.
Commander Greg Cooper with the Black Hawk Police Department said the Division of Gaming typically investigates crimes where the casino is the victim. If someone's wallet is stolen while they play the slots, he said Black Hawk PD will investigate. If they stand up with money left on the slot machine and someone else tries to cash in the credits, the Division of Gaming will handle the case.
The recent theft at the Monarch Casino is squarely within the Division of Gaming's jurisdiction; one of its officers wrote the arrest affidavit for the cashier accused of stealing the $500,000.
The affidavit says Sabrina Eddy grabbed 10 bricks of cash from the casino's vault and drove away in a gold minivan early in the morning of March 12.
She told them a man called, claimed to be a casino boss and instructed her to take the money or the casino "would be in breach of contract," according to the affidavit. She said she met a man she believed to be an attorney in a dark hospital parking lot later that morning and handed over the money.
Eddy is in the Gilpin County Jail on a theft charge. She has not made bond.
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