February 6, 2020 — The MGM Grand Casino in Detroit will not be held liable for millions of stolen dollars lost in gambling binges by a local wiseguy and con man, according to a ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals this week.
Reputed Detroit mob associate Gino Accettola, who is currently in prison for an unrelated credit card scam, fleeced a dozen investors of a combined $6,000,000 and then gambled it away at the MGM’s blackjack tables, receiving perks and VIP treatment as a high-roller throughout an epic 2014 casino binge. Per the lawsuit, Accettola often bragged of his ties to the Motor City’s Tocco-Zerilli crime family and told the investors he was putting the money into construction projects in Florida. When they pressed him for a return on their money, he told them his “bosses in the mob” were delaying the payout.
Those investors filed suit in Wayne County Circuit Court seeking to hold MGM responsible for the losses because of a failure to vet Accettola’s background and finances when he applied for the casino’s extended credit program. The circuit court ruled against them in 2017 and the appellate court affirmed the decision in a ruling released Wednesday.
The 52-year old Accettola was sentenced to a minimum of seven years in state prison in August 2018 after pleading no contest to theft charges connected to a credit card scam where he ripped off a credit card company for $150,000 through his chain of tanning salons. Accettola, allegedly linked to the Detroit mob’s “Tocco crew,” owned five Miami Tan outlets in Southeast Michigan. He had done time in federal prison in the 1990s for fraud and took another pinch in state court for a con job in 2013 in which he got lucky and escaped with a suspended sentence.
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