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Woman accused in $500k casino heist released on PR bond

A Gilpin County judge reduced Sandra Eddy's bond after meeting off the record with attorneys from both sides.

BLACK HAWK, Colo. — The woman arrested in the state’s biggest casino heist ever, was released from jail on a personal recognizance bond nearly two months after the theft was reported.

Investigators said early the morning Daylight Saving Time began, Sabrina Eddy, a cashier walked out of the Monarch Casino with $500,000 in cash.

At 12:45 a.m. on March 12, Eddy, 44, was captured on video reaching into the vault of the casino's cage and grabbing bricks of $50,000 each, a Division of Gaming investigator said in an affidavit.

The affidavit says Eddy walked out of the casino cage to the parking garage, got into a gold minivan and drove off. She returned an hour later, investigators said, and grabbed four more bricks of bills -- for a total of half a million dollars in all -- before driving off again.

Gilpin County Judge David Taylor had expressed incredulity at prosecutors willingness to reduce Eddy’s bond from $10,000 to a PR bond during a hearing last month.

However, he said in a status hearing Monday that he had met “off the record” with attorneys for the prosecution and defense and changed his mind. The PR bond means Eddy did not have to pay bail in order to be released.

As a condition of release, Eddy must wear a GPS monitor and cannot return to the casino where she is alleged to have stolen $500,000 in cash.

The affidavit says Eddy insisted she did nothing wrong and said she thought casino bosses told her to take out the cash.

She told investigators she received a call on the casino's phone from a man purporting 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, according to the affidavit.

She said the two men told her the funds would be delivered to a lawyer. She brought the box to St. Anthony's Hospital, where a man came to her door and took it at approximately 4:36 in the morning, the affidavit says.

When she tried to call back the men who instructed her to take out the money, she told investigators there was no answer.  

Eddy told investigators she was aware of casino procedures, but said she didn't follow them because she was instructed by a "Casino Member" to do otherwise.

"Eddy continued to state she did nothing wrong, but she was just following orders she believed had [been] put out by the casino," the affidavit says.

She is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on May 22.

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