BLACK HAWK, Colo. — One of two defendants charged in connection with the largest casino heist in Colorado history pleaded guilty in Gilpin County Court Friday.
Juan Gutierrez-Zambrano, 32, pleaded guilty to one felony count and one misdemeanor count of criminal mischief. Two felony theft charges were dropped as a result of the plea.
Investigators said his co-defendant, 45-year-old Sabrina Eddy, stole 10 bricks of cash totaling $500,000 from the vault of the Monarch Casino in Black Hawk in March 2023.
The cashier's arrest affidavit says she packed the money into boxes, placed rags on top of it, sealed the boxes shut and delivered it to someone in the parking lot at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood in two trips in her minivan. Gutierrez-Zambrano was believed to be the person she delivered the money to.
The affidavit says Eddy told investigators she had received a call on the casino's phone from a man claiming to be Monarch's head of operations. He and another man, who she believed was a cage manager while exchanging texts with him, told her the casino was having a problem with a UPS order and needed the money or the casino would "be in breach of contract," she told investigators. She said the two men told her the funds would be delivered to a lawyer, according to the affidavit.
But after a polygraph test indicated Eddy was lying, she gave a different account of what happened. The affidavit says Eddy told investigators that "unknown associates of her deceased former husband had contacted her and forced her to engage in the theft after levying threats against her family members by email and on phone calls."
It was the biggest casino theft since gambling became legal in Colorado in 1991.
Gutierrez-Zambrano is scheduled to be sentenced on April 12.
Eddy is free on a personal recognizance bond. Her trial is scheduled to begin on Aug. 19.
This article draws from previous reporting by Angela Case and Cole Sullivan.
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