Café owners plead to gambling charge

FALL RIVER – Two individuals and their companies have pleaded guilty to gaming charges in connection with gambling operations run out of Internet café Leo’s Place in Fall River and Fairhaven, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced last week.
Leo Pelletier, 66, of Fall River, and Linda Pelletier, 47, of Spring Hill, Fla., both pleaded guilty in Bristol County Superior Court to charges of “organizing or promoting gambling services,” operating an illegal lottery, allowing lotteries in a building and the sale and advertising of lottery tickets. After the pleas were entered, Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh sentenced each of the defendants to two years of probation.
The defendants operated two Internet cafés named Leo’s Place through the corporation they managed, New England Internet Cafés LLC. The limited-liability corporation pleaded guilty to the same charges. As a condition of the plea, Judge Garsh ordered that 100 percent of the company’s assets, more than $100,000, be forfeited to the commonwealth
In February 2011, the attorney general’s office began an investigation into Leo’s Place locations in Fairhaven and Fall River, gathering information that patrons of these Internet cafés were paying nearly exclusively for the right to gamble.
Both locations ceased operations in the wake of the AG’s investigation. •

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