Second Gambling Bust

Elissa Burnell News Channel 11 May 6, 5:45 PM EDT Only three months after a super bowl sunday gambling bust... the same Tri-Cities home is busted again. We first brought you news of the bust today on News Channel 11 at noon. Officers leveled 4 misdemeanor and two felony charges this morning. Just past the pawn shop...and up the private Cleek Road lies a trailer park. It was inside this front trailer that police have now busted gambling operations twice. On Super Bowl Sunday $25,000 was taken. Today another $5,000 and tip boards with bets on sporting events were confiscated. According to Sgt. Michael Conroy of the Virginia State Police, "the trailer is set up just for gambling people really don't live in it, there's really no obvious signs of people staying in there any long term." Sgt. Conroy says 5 people were playing cards at the time of the bust early this morning. We couldn't get anyone in Weber City to agree to speak with us on camera and many said that the first they heard of the gambling bust was on today's news, though they were quick to add that folks on Cleek Road have never been anything but good neighbors. Good neighbors or not State Police believe that they've got a strong case against 68 year old Verlin Grills of Church Hill who was charged with a felony in each of the two busts. Adds Conroy, "it's going to be hard to say he didn't know what was going on when you busted him twice on the same location." Police say most of the gamblers were retirees...often crossing the border from Tennessee.