DENVER—A high-stakes Denver poker club recently closed by the state catered to prominent sports and media personalities and left several customers in deep debt, The Denver Post and KUSA-TV reported Friday.
Rod Bernstein, a former Denver Broncos running back; Reggie Rivers, an ex-Broncos fullback and current KCNC-TV sports anchor; and Francois Safieddine, president of Denver’s Monarck nightclub, were among those who played at the Gin Rummy Club operated by Jeffrey Castardi, the Post and KUSA reported.
Castardi, 47; his wife, Dawn Nancy Wolf, 34; and five others were indicted on racketeering, illegal gambling, loan sharking and other charges.
Castardi was in Jefferson County jail in lieu of $500,000 bond. Wolf is free awaiting trial. Both refused comment to the Post and KUSA.
Poker players at the club won’t be charged. They are being treated as witnesses, officials said.
Castardi has light ties to the Gambino crime family in New York, but there is no indication the Denver club had any links to organized crime, authorities said.
The Gin Rummy Club also took sports bets and supported a loan sharking operation, they said. It opened in 2003 and earned at least $750,000 in one year, making it one of the largest operations in recent city history, according to Ralph Gagliardi, an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Gagliardi said the club’s three tables each could handle 10 players with no betting limits. The club took a cut of the money. Anyone who borrowed from the club or owed it money paid 5 percent interest per week or more, authorities said.
“We don’t have a lot of loan-sharking and bookmaking on this kind of scale,” said state Attorney General John Suthers.
Castardi was arrested in 1988 in his native Long Island for promoting gambling, according to Nassau County district attorney’s spokesman Eric Phillips. He said Richard Giordonello, a member of the Gambino organization, participated in that operation.
Two men associated with the Denver club committed suicide, The Post and KUSA reported.
One was Eric Cox. A cell phone found near his body contained text messages demanding payment, according to the indictment.
Cox had written more than $20,000 in checks on an account belonging to his mother and sold his car to offset debts, the indictment said.
Jeremy Fowler, 33, helped run the Gin Rummy Club. He, too, committed suicide, in New Mexico. The indictment says Castardi suspected Fowler of stealing from the club.
Bernstein said he played at the club five or six times and enjoyed the stakes.
“There is a $5 limit in Central City,” he said. “I don’t like the stakes up there.”
“I’d have to say I knew it was illegal, (but) after a few times you’ve been playing there and nothing happens, you figure nothing will happen to you, so you keep playing,” Bernstein said.
Safieddine and Rivers declined comment, though KCNC, branded as CBS4, issued a statement.
“CBS4 is aware that Reggie Rivers is on the witness list regarding the Gin Rummy Club and we have been informed that he is fully cooperating with the CBI,” said station spokeswoman Danielle Dascalos.
