Talk about a high-profile crime, the "Biker Bandit" isn't just big news around here -- Anthony Curtis has been interviewed about him not once, but twice by "Good Morning America".
To review briefly, on Dec. 14, 2010, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet with a visor hiding his face walked up to a crap table in the pit at Bellagio, brandished a handgun, told everyone not to move, and made off with $1.5 million in casino checks. Then, reportedly, he ran out the door, hopped on a motorcycle, and rode away.
A similar robbery had occurred earlier in the month at Suncoast, when a man wearing a motorcycle helmet robbed the cage of a poker tournament room of less than $20,000. (These two incidents seem to be unrelated to the September 2008 robbery at the Las Vegas Hilton race and sports book, in which the perpetrators, who to our knowledge remain at large, also sported motorcycle helmets.)
The events leading up to the arrest of 29-year-old Anthony Carleo, a local whose father is a Las Vegas municipal court judge, on Wednesday February 2 indicate that Corleo won’t take a place among the world’s smartest armed robbers.
According to the arrest report, Carleo managed to turn some of the chips into cash, then returned to his hometown, Pueblo, Colo., and partied hard, telling everyone he’d won $80,000 gambling.
He returned to Las Vegas and started firing it up at the Bellagio poker tables, losing $72,000 in one night; in early January, Bellagio actually comped him a week in a suite. But casino workers started to get suspicious of Carleo’s easy access to Bellagio casino chips.
Also, by then, Carleo admitted to poker acquaintances that he’d committed the heist. An informant told police he'd heard about Carleo from a friend.
Carleo had also been participating in a poker forum on the 2+2 website, where he admitted to the robbery in a private email to one of the forum participants. The participant immediately called the casino, local police, and FBI.
The police approached Carleo in a sting, offering to buy the $25,000 chips from him. When the undercover agents invited Carleo to join a crew that would rob casinos, including Bellagio, he told them that he’d already robbed Bellagio.
Why did he do it?
Court records show Carleo filed for bankruptcy in Colorado in May 2009, owing nearly $188,000 in various debts.
Also, the scuttlebutt has it that Carleo is strung out on OxyContin, a powerful opiate-based painkiller.
Police have recovered $900,000 worth of chips and have accounted for another $300,000, leaving $300,000 unaccounted for.
Carleo was initially charged with three counts, including robbery with use of a deadly weapon, burglary with use of a deadly weapon, and trafficking of a controlled substance, but we believe the latter charge has since been dropped.
He's being held without bail on the robbery with a deadly weapon charge and on $15,000 bail for burglary with the use of a deadly weapon. It’s unclear if Carleo was the Suncoast robber or just a copy-cat criminal.
His next court appearance is on February 23.
