Gamblor’s World

Racetrack duo took 17 bullets, were strangled, bludgeoned

Keith Fraser, The Province, Tuesday, February 13, 2007

A man charged with killing two people at a Pitt Meadows farmhouse says a former top jockey at Hastings Park committed the murders in a dispute over a marijuana grow-op.

Mark Patzer, a former leading rider who launched a hugely successful comeback in 2001, shot Julie Smith, 33, and Glen Martin, 48, the ex-jockey’s nephew told undercover police in a taped conversation.

The nephew, Michael Joseph Wilson, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder after RCMP ran a so-called Mr. Big operation against him following the November 2002 deaths.

Patzer has never been charged. Contacted yesterday at his Coquitlam home, he said he was sick in bed and had no comment.

“The evidence will disclose that the killings were unusually violent,” prosecutor Kerr Clark told B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Donna Martinson earlier yesterday on the opening day of trial.

Smith, who was not involved in the grow-op, was shot 11 times. On the day of the killings she had been invited by her friend Martin to the farmhouse on a 32-hectare property to help harvest the crop to pay off a debt to Martin.

Smith, who had worked with horses at the racetrack, where she met Martin, a trainer, was also strangled with what appeared to be a coat hanger.

Martin, who rented the property for the grow-op, was shot twice in the chest and four times in the head and was struck in the head with a blunt object, believed to be a flat-headed hammer.

Their bodies were draped in a curtain and placed in the trunk of Smith’s Ford LTD, which was towed away after being found abandoned on Highway 1 near the Willingdon exit days after the slayings.

Clark told the judge that despite the forensic evidence gathered and a search of the farmhouse, police were unable to lay any charges and decided to launch an undercover operation. An officer posing as a crime boss trying to locate a fugitive at the track eventually made contact with Wilson, who frequented the track, and offered to have him join his organization, Clark said.

Wilson, told by the officer to come clean on his background, was videotaped saying that the shooting of Smith and Martin was done with his own handgun.

“He will say the actual shooting was done by his uncle, Mr. Patzer. When asked by the ‘crime boss’ whether Julie Smith made any effort to flee, he’ll recall that the shots were fired downstairs by Mr. Patzer.”

Wilson told the cops that he was upstairs with Smith and the volume of the TV was turned up loud so they couldn’t hear the shooting, said Clark.

He then got a cellphone call from Patzer telling him it was time to bring Smith downstairs.

“He knew then what he had to do and he brought Julie Smith and handed her to Mr. Patzer. At that time she was shot.”

Asked by the undercover officer why the slaying happened, Wilson told him that he and his uncle were concerned about the reputation of the track, said Clark. “They had heard that Mr. Martin was talking about the grow-operation among their colleagues at the track.”

At another point, Wilson told the undercover officer that he and Patzer “wanted to take the operation over. They felt that they were entitled to larger profits.”

Clark said Wilson admitted that he drove Smith’s car toward Vancouver with the intention of disposing of the bodies but flames came out from under the engine and he had to abandon the vehicle.

Wilson was videotaped saying he later threw the small handgun used in the shootings off the Lions Gate Bridge and the shell casings off the Second Narrows Bridge. Other evidence was disposed of in various lanes and dumpsters around Vancouver and other parts of the Lower Mainland. Wilson burned the gloves he was wearing and his clothing, said the prosecutor.

Wilson’s lawyer, James Sutherland, gave a short opening for the defence and told the judge: “Any activities that he participated in subsequent to the [killings] may very well make him guilty of being an accessory after the fact, but that’s not what he is charged with.”

The trial continues today.

In October 2001, Patzer spoke to Province racetrack columnist Tom Wolski about his comeback after retiring nearly 10 years earlier.

“When I retired in 1992, my daughter Jessica was only two years old,” he said. “And for years the one thing I regretted about that retirement was Jessica not being able to appreciate what I did for a living. My dream always had been to have Jessica watching me ride winners — and enjoying the thrill I feel of being in the winner’s circle.”

kfraser@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007

By ELIZA BARLOW, EDMONTON SUN, Tue, February 13, 2007

Fired senior civil servant Lloyd Carr says he didn’t embezzle funds from his employer - but even if he did, it was because he was coerced and threatened by superiors.

Carr makes the claims in a statement of defence filed in Court of Queen’s Bench in the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission’s lawsuit against him.

AADAC fired Carr, who was the executive director in charge of the commission’s tobacco reduction unit, in September last year after the auditor general noticed financial irregularities in the program.

In a report released in November, auditor general Fred Dunn found that between January 2004 and September 2006, Carr pilfered $634,000 from AADAC, using much of the cash to fuel a gambling addiction.

Dunn found Carr used five false contracts to divert the cash from the commission.

Of that, $441,000 went to Carr, while the remainder went to other parties, including two consulting firms and the Alberta Lung Association - all of whom appeared unaware of the scam, Dunn said.

Carr transferred the money to personal accounts and over time withdrew $156,000 from ATMs - mostly cash machines in two casinos.

Some of the cash was used to support a lavish lifestyle, including $60,000 to buy a vehicle and $91,000 that went to a down payment on a new house.

In the statement of defence, filed Jan. 31 on behalf of Carr by city law firm Jomha Skrobot, Carr denies every allegation contained in AADAC’s statement of claim.

He denies he had authority to authorize contracts between AADAC and third parties and adds the “alleged contracts between AADAC and third parties were not authorized by the Defendant, but by others senior to him at AADAC.”

However, the statement of defence goes on to say that if he was involved in the “alleged scheme,” it was because his bosses forced him.

The statement says “if (Carr) did participate in the scheme as alleged, which is not admitted, he did so under extreme duress, threats, pressure and coercion by one or others senior to him.”

The statement of defence doesn’t name names as to who Carr claims coerced him.

Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc

Feb 13, 2007 04:30 AM, Ellie Tesher

Q: I’ve been dating my boyfriend for several months and am greatly concerned about his gambling. Be it when he’s online or at the casino, it’s gambling that is consuming his time, and interfering with my time with him. If I call him, he doesn’t answer because he’s playing poker. Or if he neglects to call me, it’s because he’s playing poker and has forgotten all about contacting me. Even if I go over to visit his house, he is playing online poker for money. He’s disappointed and mad that he doesn’t have the money to buy things and do things. He feels money would solve all of his problems, thus he plays these games to try and win more money. He bets and gambles almost every day of the week! I tell him that he should save the money he’s now using and gambling away, since he’s not winning anything. But worse, he’s now even talking of becoming a “professional gambler.”

- Troubled

A: This still-early relationship with your boyfriend is too worrisome too soon for you to accept his problems as your own. He has a gambling addiction, and it’s fuelled by a whopping fantasy of changing his life overnight, with the ever-elusive Big Win. Even in that unlikely event, you have seen that he’d only gamble it away. The proof - and the likely source of his problem - lies in his anger. It prevents him from trying to achieve success and its rewards through the normal, responsible routes of work, upgrading skills, and setting realistic goals. He’s already letting you down through neglect and anxieties at this beginning stage, when he should be trying hardest to woo you. The best you can do to show you care about him, is to insist he join Gamblers’ Anonymous to find a support network and professional help to curb his obsession. Meantime, I advise you to end the relationship, or at least take a break, since you can’t depend on him for companionship, and can’t count on his pipe dreams for the future. Explain that unless he recognizes and confronts his gambling problem, there’s nothing to hold you together.

Ivanhoe Newswire, February 12, 2007

(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Roughly 3 million U.S. adults are problem gamblers, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. Now, a new study reveals a type of medication used to treat restless legs syndrome could add to that number.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., report a small number of patients became compulsive gamblers after starting treatment for restless legs syndrome, also known as RLS. The three patients were taking dopamine agonists, a class of medications used to treat restless legs syndrome and Parkinson’s.

Dopamine agonists essentially mimic the behavior of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine helps the brain control movements, which is why patients with Parkinson’s disease are prescribed dopamine agonists. Dopamine is also involved in the reward functions of the brain. The newest medications of this kind, pramipexole (Mirapex) and ropinirole (Requip), target the motivation, emotion, and reward centers of the brain. Researchers speculate the strong stimulation of those areas of the brain encourage patients to seek out pleasurable behaviors, like gambling.

Mayo Clinic researchers describe the case of a woman who, after starting treatment for restless legs syndrome, developed an uncontrollable urge to gamble. The patient reported no previous history of gambling. She eventually gambled away more than $140,000. Once she stopped taking ropinirole, she completely lost the urge to gamble.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: NEUROLOGY, 2007; 68:301-303

ED. - One of the factors contributing to RLS is low iron consumption (easily checked through blood tests for ferriten and RBC). I do hope that physicians are ruling out physical factors such as low iron before putting patients on dopamine agonists. Low iron is endemic in most societies at this time for women but many physicians do not run these routine blood tests. Fatigue, depression, shortness of breath on exertion, hair loss, bruising, restless leg syndrome can all be related to low ferritin levels.