Court Day for Loushil Comes 

Patrick Loushil has waived his pre-trial hearing and will be doing directly to court for his part in a slot machine scam. Loushil is accused of allegedly exploiting a glitch in the slot machines at the Meadows Racetrack and Casino that allowed him to take more than $400,000 from the games. Loushil is pleading not guilty, and it not alone in his trial. 

Former Swissvale Police Officer Kerry Laverde, and Andre Nestor, 37, are also accused of being part of the slot machine scheme. They have also plead not guilty and have waived their preliminary hearings as well. All have agreed to stand trial at a later date. The men and their attorneys claim that they have done nothing wrong as the scheme may have allowed them to get payouts making it “clever” but not illegal. 

The casino says that they believe that an option on the slot machines was changed which is what makes it illegal and although they are not sure which of the defendants did it, they know that it was them. They say that they will be “putting that evidence forward” in court. They say that this, combined with the glitch, allowed them to get pay outs that were much higher than what they should have been. 

Supposedly they convinced a casino worker who did not realize what he was doing to change the feature on the slot machine to the “soft” option, thus enabling the larger payouts. They say that as Pennsylvania is not used to these kinds of schemes that places like Las Vegas are aware of that they are going to have to be more careful in the future as to who they allow near the machines.