Eight Feet Deep

Here is the kind of ver­dict that leaves me com­pletely flummoxed.

A jury today here in Beau­mont, of the Texas vari­ety, sen­tenced sus­pended state trooper Jonathan Bar­nett to six months in jail and fined him $10,000 for run­ning a fam­ily busi­ness that oper­ates ille­gal gam­ing machines. Doc­u­ments listed Bar­nett, 32, as pres­i­dent of a family-owned nov­elty machine com­pany raided by author­i­ties in 2007. The machines owned and leased by the com­pany included so-called “eight-liners.” These are essen­tially slot machines which busi­nesses award win­ning cus­tomers who play with cash.

Bar­nett, a trooper since 2001, tes­ti­fied that he began phas­ing out his over­sight of the com­pany to his mother after becom­ing a high­way patrol offi­cer. He also denied know­ing the machines had been used for gam­bling. Jurors found Bar­nett guilty of engag­ing in orga­nized crim­i­nal activ­ity. Due to the gam­bling charges involved in the alleged activ­ity, Bar­nett could have been sen­tenced to a max­i­mum of two years in prison, accord­ing to local media reports.

So why am I flum­moxed at this ver­dict, you might ask? He was found guilty. He was a state trooper he should have known bet­ter. Right and right. Thus is the rea­son for my bewil­dered state.

Was this man stu­pid, arro­gant, greedy or all the above?

Local and state law enforce­ment, includ­ing Barnett’s soon to be for­mer employer the Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety, con­tin­u­ally make local head­lines with bust of eight-liner arcades across the state. State laws in the mid-1990s pro­vided the so-called “fuzzy ani­mal” excep­tion which allows a machine to pay out a non-cash prize for a play of $5 value or 10 times the cost of play, whichever is less.  Most cash prizes awarded ille­gally are done on the sly, which often neces­si­tates under­cover police oper­a­tions to bust the eight-liner oper­a­tors and owners.

In short, a Texan can’t walk down the street with­out being hit on the head by media reports of proud local law enforcers show­ing off the gam­bling machines they busted and money seized in the raids. Since I have seen cops of all stripe gam­bling ille­gally in all man­ners per­haps short of slot machines, and have even gam­bled with cops before, I don’t believe their fer­vor for bust­ing eight-liners is rooted in reli­gion or moral repug­nance. Per­haps it has some­thing to do with the money seized in the raids that go to the var­i­ous police agen­cies. Could that be it? Surely not.

What irri­tates me the most about the Bar­nett case is the blem­ish he causes for the agency that employed him. In gen­eral terms, I have had more respect for the Texas High­way Patrol than any other law enforce­ment agency. Maybe he is just a bad apple or an igno­ra­mus. He is not the only one I have seen in the DPS nor will he be the last. But the fact is eight-liner gam­bling is a very high-profile offense, though hardly the stuff of Baby Face Nel­son, and this now con­victed and sen­tenced for­mer state trooper should have steered clear of his fam­ily ties to the “nov­elty” gam­ing busi­ness when he decided to don the gray suit and cow­boy hat of the DPS.

I also feel that some­day “real” slot machines will be tum­bling their fruit in cer­tain sec­tors of the Lone Star State. That is, if the money bagged folks who want gam­bling in Texas can out­spend and out­wit those who already oper­ate casi­nos in neigh­bor­ing states.  When that hap­pens, and I believe it will, the eight-liners will be a relic of times past. Then, peo­ple like for­mer trooper Bar­nett will be con­victed felons despite the dimin­ished nature of the crime.

Talk about your dumb crimes. This one rates way on up there.