LOCKPORT — A bowling league treasurer who gambled away $15,000 of league revenue at a local casino pleaded guilty in Niagara County Court on Wednesday.

Roy Moses, 39, of Susies Lane on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation, admitted to fourth-degree grand larceny and was scheduled for sentencing Aug. 14 by Judge Peter L. Broderick Sr.

Assistant District Attorney Doreen M. Hoffmann said Moses took in weekly payments from members of a league at Frontier Lanes in Lewiston from September through April and used them to gamble instead of putting them in the bank.

She said Moses was trying to win the money back at a casino he did not name but failed to do so. Hoffmann said that in April, Moses set fire to some papers in his home and let the flames spread to his briefcase to try to convince league members the money was in the briefcase and had been destroyed.

A federal grand jury has indicted a Canadian woman and charged her with importing 32 pounds of marijuana in the spare tire of her rental car. She also was charged with possessing a small amount of cocaine.

Katrina Tenn, 29, was arrested Jan. 6 with two men after customs agents who had searched her car noticed she had no spare tire, according to a criminal complaint.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents put the Jeep Cherokee under surveillance and said they saw Tenn meet two men in an SUV near the Seneca Niagara Casino and watched them exchange a tire.

The two men, Ly Du Nam and Cong Thanh Truong, told agents they were paid $3,000 each to deliver the marijuana to an undisclosed location in the United States. They said Tenn previously paid them $6,000 for an earlier delivery. Both men are expected to plead guilty next month.

AMHERST, N.Y. — The docket in front of Justice Mark G. Farrell one recent Tuesday afternoon looked like a routine roster of small-time crime: petty larceny, attempted burglary, check forgery. But the offenders shared a single motivation: money to gamble.

Justice Mark G. Farrell presides at gambling treatment court in Amherst, N.Y. The judge is known for his stern lectures to defendants.

Such is the criminal parade in the country’s first and only gambling treatment court. Following the model of about 2,000 “therapy courts” devoted to drugs and spousal abuse that have opened nationwide in the last two decades, the setup here allows defendants to avoid jail time if they follow a court-supervised program that includes counseling sessions, credit checks and twice-monthly meetings with Justice Farrell.

“I realize this is demanding,” the judge said the other day as he ordered Andrew Hallett, 19, who forged his father’s checks to feed a bingo and lottery addiction, to attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings twice a week. “If you continue to apply yourself to the program, and you continue to go to the self-helps, we’ll get you through it.”

Mirroring the rise in gambling nationally and the opening of two new casinos near this suburb of Buffalo, the court’s caseload has grown steadily since it opened in 2001, to several dozen cases a year from a handful. And as gambling has become more popular, with the growth of online poker and with New York State lottery revenues nearly doubling to $6.8 billion over the past six years, Justice Farrell’s docket includes middle-aged parents with college degrees and steady jobs as well as young drug users with criminal records.

“Gambling has become almost a genre in our society,” said Justice Farrell, who lectures defendants with a stern voice and a no-nonsense tone. A majority of the gamblers he sees can hold their own, he said, “but it’s the 5 percent that have problems, and we’re seeing an expression of it in gambling court.”

The gambling court is too small and too young to show statistically significant results, but its staff members say that more than half the 100-plus defendants so far have completed the treatment program, and only one has been arrested again — on an offense not connected to gambling. But drug courts have shown some impressive results: a 2003 study in Washington State found that participants were 13 percent less likely to become repeat offenders than defendants who went through the regular criminal system, saving $3,759 per participant in potential administrative costs and $3,020 in costs to victims.

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. — A Niagara Falls man is among those charged with taking part in a card-cheating scam that took in more than $3.5 million from 18 casinos in the United States and Canada. Authorities say no local casinos were among those targeted.

The betting ring, allegedly run by the Tran Organization in San Diego, is accused of bribing casino dealers and using transmitters, cell phones and computer programs to rig the outcomes of mini-baccarat and blackjack games.

The 44-month investigation became public with indictments unsealed Thursday in San Diego and the state of Washington, where Jacob Nickels, the son of Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, was among the card dealers arrested.

Ten of the 18 casinos targeted were owned by Indian tribes. The only Canadian casino involved was Casino Rama, near Orillia, north of Toronto.

Canadian authorities identified the Niagara Falls man who was arrested as Robert Salillari, 38.

Spokesmen for Fallsview Casino on the Canadian side, and Seneca Gaming Corp. said the local casinos were not involved.

When federal agents raided local massage parlors last month, they were shocked to find a Department of Homeland Security law enforcement officer’s gun and uniform in an apartment linked to one of the parlors.

That officer — David J. Wolkiewicz, 51 — appeared before a federal magistrate judge Tuesday, and court papers indicated that he has admitted that he helped run a parlor where prostitution allegedly took place.

Prosecutors said Wolkiewicz, an officer with U.S. Customs & Border Protection, has admitted assisting the operator of the Asian Acupressure Therapy parlor at 7500 Porter Road, Town of Niagara.

Wolkiewicz, who has been suspended from duty, was charged last week with lying to government agents.

According to court papers, the federal officer’s uniform, name plate and gun were found on March 26, when federal agents raided a Porter Road apartment of a massage parlor employee.

When agents confronted him that day at a nearby location, he admitted that he was involved in a romantic relationship with a woman who ran the parlor but initially stated that he provided “no financial support or other assistance” to the business.

But later, authorities said, Wolkiewicz admitted that he:

• Sometimes drove women who he believed were prostitutes between the parlor and Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

• Once delivered a gym bag from the woman who ran the parlor to another woman at a casino in Niagara Falls, Ont. Wolkiewicz said he believed the gym bag contained sneakers and clothing.

• Once delivered a package from the same Ontario casino to the woman who ran the parlor. That package included about 10 smaller foil packages. Wolkiewicz said he believed the foil packages contained cosmetics, and he did not declare them when he transported them over the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge into the United States.

• Did maintenance and repair work at the massage parlor, including changing a shower head, fixing a whirlpool and repairing light fixtures.

• Placed advertisements for the massage parlor in local newspapers.

• Got a Sam’s Club card for the massage parlor, and the card had his photograph on it.

“Wolkiewicz also stated that he tried to distance himself from the prostitution establishment, that he attempted to encourage [the operator] to run a legitimate business,” Robert M. Vanderbles, an agent with the homeland security inspector general’s office, said in court papers.

The papers were filed by William J. Hochul Jr., chief of the national security division at the U.S. attorney’s office in Buffalo. Hochul declined to comment, except to confirm what was stated in the documents.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents raided eight massage parlors in Erie and Niagara counties on March 26, following a lengthy investigation into claims that illegal aliens were being recruited to work as prostitutes at the parlors.

Fourteen people have been charged so far in what authorities call a major human trafficking investigation. Yong Mei Shi, the woman identified in court papers as having a relationship with Wolkiewicz, was arrested during the raids on charges of harboring illegal aliens.

Wolkiewicz and one of his attorneys, Ellen Poch, appeared briefly Tuesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy, who allowed the federal officer to remain free without bail.

A plea of not guilty has been entered by Wolkiewicz. Poch said she had no comment on the allegations.

dherbeck@buffnews.com

NIAGARA FALLS — An altercation with another patron in the parking lot of the Seneca Niagara Casino led to the arrest of a Scottsville woman Saturday night.

Police charged Deana E. Schermerhorn, 39, with a felony count of driving while intoxicated. She was taken into custody shortly after 9 p.m.

According to reports, the DWI was charged as a felony because it was Schermerhorn’s third such offense.

LOCKPORT — A man who tried to steal a North Tonawanda woman’s purse, cutting her hand and face with a knife in the process, was sentenced Tuesday by Niagara County Judge Peter L. Broderick Sr. to five years in prison.

Scott J. Read, 40, of Seventh Street, Niagara Falls, had pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree robbery and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the Feb. 1, 2006, incident in the parking lot of Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls.

NIAGARA FALLS — A Buffalo man was robbed early Sunday by two men who accosted him in a self-park lot outside the Seneca Niagara Casino, police said.

The victim told police he was walking to his car in the former Lackey Plaza area at 6:30 a.m., when two men came up from behind, bumped him and demanded money. When he said he had none, they bumped him again. One man reached into the victim’s rear pocket, grabbed $3,100 in cash, and the two fled in a waiting car.

The longtime chief financial officer of both the Hopevale school and residence for troubled children in Hamburg was sentenced Friday to a six-month jail term and ordered to repay his former employer $50,000. Kenneth A. Mangione, 63, who worked for Hopevale for 35 years, was taken from court in handcuffs after State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang turned down his lawyer's request for a nonjail sentencing. Mangione has admitted he embezzled $192,679 from the school to finance his casino gambling.

It was at least the third time this year that a local resident was in court on charges of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars because of casino gambling losses.

"I accept full responsibility for everything I did. I just got caught up in this mess," Mangione said before he was taken from court in handcuffs.

Hopevale will receive insurance payments to cover Mangione's thefts, but the judge ordered him to make the $50,000 restitution payments to cover the organization's accounting and legal costs linked to the investigation.

Wolfgang, who told Mangione that "people have to take responsibility for their actions" and criticized him for betraying "the trust" of Hopevale, ordered him to successfully complete gambling- and alcoholism-treatment programs.

The judge also ordered him to make a lump sum payment of $9,000 by June 1 and then make 120 monthly payments of $341 during the five years he will be on court-supervised probation.

On Jan. 31, David R. Wendt, a former attorney and part-time judge, was sentenced to two years in Niagara County Jail. Wendt had pleaded guilty to stealing more than $200,000 from clients. Asked by State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. to explain why he did it, Wendt's lawyer, Joel L. Daniels, replied: "Booze and gambling, judge. Gambling and booze."

Six days earlier, Judith Ann Scheitheir of the City of Tonawanda pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court to stealing $350,000 from her employer. She told State Police investigators that she had "a gambling problem" and began writing company checks to herself in 2003 to cover her credit card debt and losses at the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls and the casinos in Niagara Falls, Ont., court papers say.

John C. Doscher, chief of the Erie County district attorney's White Collar Crime Bureau, said Mangione's Dec. 1 pre-indictment guilty plea to two grand larceny charges came after he was fired as chief financial officer of both the Hopevale school and residence for troubled children.

Doscher said Mangione began stealing in late 1993 and continued to embezzle funds, which he apparently lost at the casinos in Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls, Ont., through early last June.

e-mail: mgryta@buffnews.com

LOCKPORT - A former Clarence woman who tried to recruit a hit man to firebomb her neighbors' home is to be resentenced April 19 after admitting Thursday in Niagara County Court that she violated her probation.

Shirley A. Rybacki, 57, had been placed under electronic monitoring for a year after completing a six-month jail term Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza gave her last May.

Defense attorney James J. Faso said the violation was "technical," because Rybacki hadn't been paying the $240 a month fee for the ankle bracelet she was wearing. Rybacki has been living in North Tonawanda.

She was arrested July 31, 2005, and accused of meeting with a would-be hit man turned police informant in the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls and offering him $1,000 to throw firebombs into the doorways of her neighbors' home. The informant told police Rybacki thought shooting her neighbors would be "too messy."

LOCKPORT - David R. Wendt, a former attorney and part-time city judge who stole from his clients to support his gambling and alcohol addictions, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in Niagara County Jail. Wendt, 47, of Lockport, also must repay a total of $214,065 to his former clients, at least two of whom declared bankruptcy after losing their money to Wendt, and to the state Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection.

In imposing the sentence, State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr. said Wendt had committed "the mortal sin" for a lawyer - stealing from clients.

"Booze and gambling, judge. Gambling and booze," defense attorney Joel L. Daniels said as he explained what brought Wendt so low.

Daniels said Wendt hadn't taken a drink since March 30, 2000. But he said casino gambling around the country also did Wendt in.

"Thousands and thousands of dollars went through his pockets at the crap tables or the poker tables or betting on games of chance," Daniels said.

"Dave Wendt is not just a client, he's a friend, too," Daniels added. "I can't tell you how many lawyers have come up to me and asked, "How's he going to do? Can you help him?'. . . He had a good law practice. He was doing well for himself. He was a judge, and now look at the price he's paid. He's broke. He doesn't have a dime. He doesn't even have a bank account."

With family members looking on, Wendt said, "I want the court to understand, I stand here today and take full responsibility for what happened. I'd like to apologize to the court and to the legal community. . . . I'd like to apologize to my clients. For what it's worth, I'd like to do that."

Wendt, a dairy farmer's son whom Daniels said used to rise at 4:30 a.m. to milk cows before going to school, vowed to work as hard as necessary to make restitution after he gets out of jail. He said he has four goals: to rejoin his three sons, 11, 9, and 7 years old; to stay sober; to not gamble; and to get a job.

Wendt, who pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny and first-degree scheming to defraud, could have been sent to state prison for up to 15 years.

But Kloch said, "I find a confinement to state prison would not to be in the interest of the public."

The two-year sentence was part of a plea bargain reached Oct. 24.

Kloch warned Wendt that if he doesn't pay in what the court considers a timely fashion, he could be sentenced to further jail time.

Kloch said he found it "amazing" that some former clients who had been victimized had urged him not to send Wendt to jail.

Wendt stole from his clients from September 1999 to August 2005, according to court papers, which listed 18 specific thefts.

In September 2005, Wendt resigned without explanation from a part-time City of Lockport judgeship he had held since 1996. Two weeks later, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, acting on the recommendation of the Eighth Judicial District's Attorney Grievance Committee, suspended his law license. Wendt officially resigned from the bar last September.

e-mail: tprohaska@buffnews.com

LOCKPORT - A man and woman charged with staging a bank robbery to obtain money to repay funds the woman had stolen from the bank face up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday in Niagara County Court. Without waiting for an indictment, William M. Bradigan, 34, and Heather M. Davey, 28, both of Frontier Avenue, Niagara Falls, entered guilty pleas to second-degree grand larceny in the Dec. 9 heist from an automatic teller machine at the First Niagara Bank branch on River Road in North Tonawanda.

In addition to possible prison time, each will be ordered to pay restitution of $34,290 as compensation for Davey's thefts. Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza is scheduled to impose sentences April 3.

Assistant District Attorney Brian D. Seaman said $71,000 was recovered Dec. 12 after Bradigan was arrested in a Tampa, Fla., casino.

Davey, a teller at the bank, had been swiping cash from the machine, Seaman said.

Police said that Bradigan initially tried to win enough money to repay her thefts by gambling at a local casino. When that failed, the two came up with the idea of staging a robbery.

Seaman said Bradigan, armed with what might have been a fake gun, confronted Davey and another teller in the parking lot, forced the women back into the bank and compelled them to open the back of the cash machine.

Seaman said Bradigan left the two women tied up and fled to Florida with the money.

Davey initially told police a masked man had kidnapped her at her home, forced her to drive to the bank and let him in.

Police said she had called the other teller, asking her to come to the bank and turn off the alarm.

Davey was arrested the night of the robbery.

The co-worker, who didn't know Bradigan and wasn't in on the scheme, was not charged.

e-mail: tprohaska@buffnews.com

A City of Tonawanda woman pleaded guilty to stealing $350,000 from her employer, court officials and prosecutors said Thursday. Judith Ann Scheitheir, 57, of Young Street, pleaded guilty to third-degree grand larceny before State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang for her thefts from the C.J. Krantz concern while she was its bookkeeper from June 2001 to last spring.

Scheitheir admitted to State Police investigators that she has "a gambling problem" and began writing company checks to herself in 2003 to cover her credit card debt and losses at the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls and the casinos in Niagara Falls, Ont., according to court papers.

Wolfgang told Scheitheir that she probably will place her on probation when she returns to court for sentencing April 27, but the judge warned she could face a prison term of up to seven years on her pre-indictment guilty plea.

Scheitheir and her husband have turned over life insurance policies to the Lapp Road topsoil firm covering about one-third of her embezzlement, and the top soil company has taken out a $250,000 policy on her life, said Candace K. Vogel, financial crimes prosecutor.

January 25, 2007 -- Mob scion Chris Colobo, on trial for running a renegade crime family, was caught on tape boasting that he had " a hook in" former Attorney General Dennis Vacco that shielded him from state probers - a cozy deal that ended with the election of Eliot Spitzer.

"Spitzer is the worst. Vacco was the best. He didn't care about anything. I had a hook in him," Colombo tells an alleged loan-sharking victim in a shocking Jan. 19, 2001, recording, played yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

The son of murdered mob boss Joseph Colombo was under investigation by then-Attorney General Spitzer's office - a probe that would eventually lead to his arrest on federal racketeering charges, including gambling, loan-sharking and extortion.

"[Spitzer] had a particular hard-on for me because I backed Vacco, right, at a fund-raiser," Colombo told victim John Sitterly, who was wearing a wire.

Even as Colombo complained that investigators under Spitzer were likely listening to his phone calls, Sitterly was secretly recording their conversation.

Colombo claimed he was such a big law-enforcement target, one prosecutor had taken a job at Spitzer's office specifically to come after him.

"He's convinced I committed every crime in the country . . . He says when I get up in the morning, I flick the switch and crime starts," Colombo said. "This guy's been sitting on a wire on me for years. It's the only enemy I got. He's obsessed with me."

Contacted by The Post after the tape was played in court, Vacco said he had never heard of the recording's existence - or of Colombo.

"The guy's full of baloney. The Colombo name is a name I would remember," said the former Republican attorney general, who went on to lobby for the state's commercial carting industry. "I can't say with clarity 10 years after the fact that this guy never crossed my path, but if I ever met him, he never registered on my radar screen.

"It is a self-serving, boasting and erroneous statement that he had any connection to me whatsoever. That's why they call them wiseguys," Vacco added, noting that political donations were carefully "scrubbed" to weed out donors with suspected criminal ties.

Last April, Albany prosecutors cleared Vacco of allegations that he violated state lobbying regulations, following a six-month investigation.

The probe centered on whether Vacco's firm had an illegal contingency-fee contract with a Rochester businessman in exchange for helping him win a casino deal with an Oklahoma tribe.

In October 2005, Vacco's lobbying firm agreed to pay the state $50,000 in connection with the questionable contract, but it was not required to admit wrongdoing.

kati.cornell@nypost.com