It’s lemons across the board for three former Yonkers Raceway casino workers.
The ex-employees of the slot-machine salon were busted yesterday on charges of rigging nearly all of the casino’s promotional giveaway contests — ensuring that friends and relatives won more than $100,000 in cash, flat-screen TVs, laptop computers and Broadway tickets over 18 months.
Former promotions manager Donna Cronin, 44, and two cohorts took a cut — demanding cash kickbacks from many of the chosen winners of the giveaways at the raceway’s Empire City Gaming complex, said Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore.
Also arrested were Terence Osborne, 24, of Yonkers, and 31-year-old Alicia Murray, of The Bronx.
The defendants allegedly had cohorts obtain “player’s cards” from the Empire City promotions booth, and use the cards at particular slot machines at specific dates and times, the DA said.
“The winners would then be seated at a slot machine and their name would be announced over the public-address system that they had in fact won,” the DA said.
The arrests are a black eye for Empire City Gaming, operator of the three-year-old “racino,” which has been forced by state regulators to hire an outside consultant to ensure that the stunning breach of internal controls does not happen again.
“Both our patrons and our company were the victims of employees who scammed the system, cheated our patrons and cheated their employers,” Empire City said in a statement.
Empire City, the DA and the New York Lottery — which regulates the casino — all emphasized that the scammers did not rig the slot machines themselves, only the promotional giveaways.
Cronin’s lawyer, Peter Koulikourdis, said, “The charges are untrue. She maintains her innocence and intends to have herself vindicated at the end of the case.
Lawyers for Osborne and Murray could not be reached for comment.