(Stillwater, Okla.) — A woman described in court documents as the manager/owner of Cin City Bar in Cushing has pleaded guilty to a commercial gambling felony charge following an undercover investigation by the Payne County Sheriff’s Office.
Cynthia Renee Patterson, 51, of Jennings, agreed to forfeit any right to confiscated slot machines, as part of a plea bargain for a two-year deferred sentence and a $500 fine that she was given on May 16, court records show.
Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Gregg Russell worked an undercover operation with Deputy Dan Nack assisted by another deputy and a female Stillwater police officer at the Cin City Bar at 711 N. Steele in Cushing on Feb. 26, an affidavit said.
“We took a table on the northeast side of the bar area, so I could maintain surveillance of the room with the gambling machines,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
The deputy gave the Stillwater officer $10 in cash that had been photocopied with serial numbers showing and after an hour advised her to go into the room to play the machines, the affidavit said.
The officer told the deputy that the machine would only take two of the dollar bills he gave her so Russell took a $20 bill out and put it in the machine, the affidavit said.
The officer then played the machine while the deputy returned to the table, the affidavit said. After five to 10 minutes, the officer stepped in the doorway and gave the deputy a thumbs-up as if she won money, the affidavit said.
“I then asked her if she won loud enough for the bartender to hear it,” the deputy wrote in his affidavit.
When the officer told the bartender that she wanted to cash out, the bartender went into the room with the machines to see how many points were on the machine, and then reset the machine back to zero, the affidavit said.
The bartender then walked behind the bar and back into a room behind a wall out of sight before coming out and giving the officer $20 in cash, the affidavit said.
“I then advised Deputy Nack to respond to the bar and shut it down. We then exited the bar and waited in the parking lot for uniformed deputies to shut down the bar and have all the patrons of the bar leave,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
When the deputy asked the bartender where she got the money from, “she advised me from a bag out of the office,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
In the office, “I observed a ledger that displayed ‘payouts.’ I then opened the drawer where the money bag was and I observed a blue money bag displaying “Porker” written on the side of the bag,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
“Meanwhile Deputy Myers asked me to come back behind the bar and showed me a black zipper bag containing money, and inside a side pocket of the bag were two papers with dollar amounts on them and on the back of the paper was written Porker and payouts,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
“The machines were then loaded onto a trailer and I transported the machines to the sheriff’s maintenance building,” Russell wrote in his affidavit.
When the machines were opened and the money was obtained inside them, the deputies located the $22 cash that the Stillwater officer and Russell had put into the machines for her to play, the affidavit said.
According to court documents, six slot machines and $956 in cash as proceeds from them were confiscated on Feb. 26 from the Cin City Bar as illegal gambling devices.
Court records show that the bartender was not charged in connection with the operation.
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