Gambling kingpin spared more jail
The 12 years and five months John "Duffy" Conley has spent in prison for gambling are probably a record for Western Pennsylvania, so sending him back would be "unduly punitive" a federal judge said Friday.
U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab sentenced Conley, 46, of South Side to three years of probation for operating an illegal multimillion-dollar sports betting ring in 2005 and 2006.
Schwab said Conley committed a serious crime, but the planned Sunday opening of the Rivers Casino on the North Shore shows that society doesn't view gambling in the same light as drugs or violence.
"What the defendant did was illegal but not deserving of additional imprisonment," the judge said.
Conley was released in July after spending three years and five months in prison for violating probation when he set up the sports betting ring. He previously served nine years in prison, the result of several gambling charges including a 1995 conviction for running a $15 million-a-year video poker empire that operated about 4,000 machines in Western Pennsylvania.
The sports betting ring connected Allegheny County to Las Vegas gambling operations and casinos in the United Kingdom and Costa Rica. Conley accepted thousands of dollars in wagers daily, prosecutors say.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Conway wrote in a sentencing memo that the government doesn't see the point to sending Conley back to prison for essentially the same offense for which he served more than four years.
"There comes a time when enough is enough, and the government believes that we have reached that point, and further believes that the defendant should now be given yet another chance to lead a productive and crime-free life," Conway wrote.
The judge noted that Conley has no history of violence, and 11 of the 12 other people arrested in the gambling ring received probation. The 12th person, Michael "Mickey" Flynn Jr., was imprisoned on a weapons charge because he had a prior felony conviction and police found firearms when they searched his house.
Conley thanked the government for not seeking additional prison time and said he would try to control his gambling addiction.
"I really hope this is the end, at long last," he said.
