Fbi Raid Haunts Wallace Five Years Later, Elks Club May Fold Because Feds Demand Fine

Echoes from a 1991 FBI gambling raid are ringing like coins from a slot machine through Wild West Wallace.

Five years after 150 gun-toting federal agents smashed doors and confiscated 200 video-poker machines from bars across Shoshone County, the government wants to evict Wallace’s Elks Lodge and revoke its liquor license.

Boise’s U.S. Attorney’s Office last week demanded the 500-member lodge forfeit its building to satisfy unresolved civil charges that it once housed illegal gaming operations.

The notice has reopened bitter wounds in Wallace, where some residents recalled the long-ago Sunday morning raid as a dark day in a community proud of its seedy history.

The Elks Lodge was one of 50 establishments the FBI originally swarmed June 23, 1991, in search of gambling devices. Agents took four World War II-vintage slot machines that had been padlocked in the lodge’s basement.

The government eventually filed liens against the lodge and 24 bars and taverns. Most of the businesses settled the charges by paying fines as punishment for profiting from illegal activities.

The lodge, and a handful of other bars, refused to settle. Two years later, the government returned the Elks’ machines after attorney John Magnuson argued they qualified as antiques. The government kept the $119.80 that was inside.

The raid led a federal grand jury to charge then-Sheriff Frank Crnkovich with racketeering and obstruction of justice, accusing him of ignoring years of gambling and prostitution.

Crnkovich’s first trial ended in a hung jury. He was acquitted in a second trial in 1993, but lost a re-election bid.

Thursday, government lawyers said they had no interest in taking over the lodge. They’re trying to force the Elks to reach a settlement. “Wallace has a rich and wonderful tradition, but that doesn’t mean it can break the law,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Derden.

Magnuson argues no laws were broken.

“The slots were in a furnace room under padlock,” Magnuson said Thursday. “It would have been hard for the general public to be accessing them.”

Magnuson suspects the government renewed its interest in the case because the statute of limitations expires after five years. The court documents were filed in June 1996.

Regardless, Magnuson said he intends to argue that the limitations clock starts ticking from when the FBI first had evidence illegal gambling was occurring. That was months before the June raid and would mean the most recent filing came too late.

“We hope they (the government) will just leave us the heck alone,” said Dier. “They’ve done enough already.”

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