More than a year after the largest casino theft in the history of Colorado, prosecutors have decided to drop all charges against the employee who actually took $500,000 out of the casino vault. After an extensive investigation, the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office determined that Sabrina Eddy had fallen victim to a scam when she took money from her now-former employer, Monarch Casino Resort and Spa, and gave it to a stranger.
Not only did investigators figure out that Eddy was scammed (it was pretty obvious, assuming she was telling the truth about what happened), but she also did not profit a cent from the March 12, 2023 heist. As such, the DA felt it would not have been ethical to go continue the case.
Security footage showed that early in the morning of March 12 of last year, Eddy took $50,000 bricks of cash and put them into a box. She then left the Blackhawk, Colorado casino and drove away. About an hour later, she returned and did the same thing. All told, she took $500,000 from the casino.
As it turned out, Eddy was being scammed. She told investigators that she took a call on the casino’s phone from someone saying he was the casino’s head of operations. He also exchanged texts with Eddy, looping in an apparent accomplice who posed as a cage manager. They said Monarch was having an issue with a vendor payment and needed her to take the money to someone they said was a lawyer so that the casino would not be “in breach of contract.”
The meet up spot was a local hospital, where the supposed lawyer approached her car door and took the money after 4:30am. She called her contacts back, but nobody answered. It was then that she may have realized something was amiss. She called the casino to say she was coming back, adding that she “thought she might be arrested.”
Ron Kammerzell, former head of the Colorado Division of Gaming and now a regulatory consultant for the gaming industry, told 9News at the time, “For something like that to happen, it would’ve had to defeat a number of different levels of casino controls within the property.”
Eddy said she was aware of the official procedures at the casino, but was rushed and convinced she was under orders from a superior. She was arrested and charged with one count of felony theft.
