Fired admiral gambled
Ex-Navy o∞cer suspected of counterfeiting $500 poker chips
washington » The admiral fired last year as No. 2 commander of U. S. nuclear forces might have made his own counterfeit $500 poker chips with paint and stickers to feed a gambling habit that saw him banned from an entire network of casinos, according to a criminal investigative report obtained by The Associated Press.
AlthoughRearAdm. Timothy M. Giardina’s removal as deputy head of U.S. Strategic Command was announced last year, evidence of his possible role in manufacturing the counterfeit chips has not previously been revealed.
Investigators said they found hisDNAon the underside of an adhesive sticker used to alter genuine $1 poker chips to make them look like $500 chips.
Nor had the Navy disclosed how extensively he gambled.
The case is among numerous embarrassing setbacks for the nuclear force. Disciplinary problems, security flaws, weak morale and leadership lapses documented by The Associated Press over the past two years prompted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Nov. 14 to announce top-to-bottom changes in how the nuclear force is managed that will cost up to $10 billion.
The records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showGiardinawas a habitual poker player, spending 1,096 hours — an average of 15 hours per week— at the tables at the Horseshoe Council Bluffs casino in Iowa in the 18 months before being caught using three phony chips in June 2013.
Hewas such a familiar figure at the casino, across the Missouri River fromhis office near Omaha, that some there knew him as “Navy Tim.”
Such was Giardina’s
affec- tion for poker that even after he was caught, he “continued to come in and gamble on a regular basis” at Harrah’s Council Bluffs Hotel and Casino, according to an account by an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent that was turned over to theNaval Criminal Investigative Service after NCIS took over the case in August 2013.
On July 18, Giardina was banned from both the Horseshoe and Harrah’s for 90 days, but he returned at least twice to play poker at the Horseshoe before the ban expired. The second time, in October, he was given a lifetime ban from all gambling establishments run by the Horseshoe’s owner, Caesar’s Entertainment Corp.