Casino boat company's bank accounts frozen
A key investor is accused of diverting money from an Ohio bank and into Stardancer Casino Cruises.
By AMY WIMMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 15, 2002

The FBI has frozen the bank accounts of Stardancer Casino Cruises and accused an Ohio banker of helping finance the casino boats with embezzled money.
Stardancer president Sam Gray said Thursday his company has done nothing wrong and his lawyers are working to release the bank accounts. In the meantime, Stardancer is two weeks behind on dock rent owed to Hubbard's Marina in Madeira Beach.
The company, based in Little River, S.C., also docks gambling boats in Tarpon Springs, Port Richey, Fernandina Beach and Myrtle Beach, S.C.
"This was a horrible shock when our company heard about it," Gray said. "We truly felt that all of our money was legitimate."
Mark Steven Miller, the chief executive officer of Oakwood Deposit Bank Co. near Toledo, Ohio, is accused of embezzling $40-million, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court this month. Miller and some of his brothers own Sanlor, an Ohio investment company that owns about one-third of Stardancer.
Miller is accused of manipulating bank records since at least 1999 and diverting money to Stardancer. His most recent payment was a check for about $645,700 dated Jan. 16, according to records.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. closed Miller's bank Feb. 1, the day FBI investigators visited Gray in South Carolina to talk about his company's relationship with Miller.
If convicted, Miller faces 30 years in prison. He is out of jail on bail of $1-million, thanks to relatives who offered their homes and a horse farm to cover it.
Stardancer's troubles are another blot on the reputation of gaming boats in Florida, which must sail into international waters before clicking on their slot machines. Since their inception, the companies have been the subject of environmental complaints, lawsuits and federal raids.
One year ago, Gus Boulis, the founder of SunCruz Casinos, a pioneer in cruises to nowhere, was gunned down in Fort Lauderdale in a shooting police described as "well-planned."
On Thursday, a Pasco circuit judge issued a temporary injunction against Stardancer's Port Richey operation, ruling the company's shuttle boats damaged the bottom of the Pithlachascotee River.
Despite its troubles, Stardancer boats in the Tampa Bay area were open for business Thursday, and Gray said he intends to continue operating.
He said he thought the money was coming from Sanlor, the Miller brothers' investment company, not from customers at the bank in Oakwood, Ohio.
"The thing is, if you would have met (the Miller brothers), you would have said, "Boy, they're nice people,' " Gray said.
He said Stardancer is in good financial shape, and he is seeking new investors. But the company owes $40,000 in property taxes in South Carolina and has been sued by two advertising companies trying to collect payment.
"Anybody would have a hard time if their bank account was frozen," Gray said.
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TARPON SPRINGS -- The 128-foot ship bears the name El Dorado, the mythical gold city sought by conquistadors throughout South America.
Unlike its namesake, the Stardancer Casino Cruise ship commandeered from its mooring at the Sponge Docks during the weekend is not hotly sought after.
The police weren't looking for it Monday.
"There is no crime," Tarpon Springs police Sgt. Jeff Young said. "No victim has come forward to say the boat was stolen."
The Coast Guard wasn't looking, either.
"It was a repossession issue," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Paul Rhynard. "There's not a whole lot we could do, or would do."
He said the Coast Guard turned down a request -- presumably from company president Samuel A. Gray -- to radio the ship and determine its whereabouts.
"That's not something we do," Rhynard said.
Gray and his son, company vice president Samuel Gray Jr., did not respond to several telephone messages Monday. The company runs cruises out of Port Richey, Madeira Beach, Miami Beach, Fernandina Beach and Myrtle Beach, S.C. The El Dorado docked at the Sponge Docks, but customers got to it by small shuttle boats that motored out from Port Richey and Tarpon Springs.
Rhynard said a person identified as being from Entertainment Cruises Ltd. authorized the repossession and provided paperwork to the owners.
"That's not something we, as a federal agency, deal with," Rhynard said.
Young also said police received a call beforehand that the boat was going to be legally repossessed.
"Those are all civil matters and we don't get involved in civil matters," Young said.
The apparent repossession is the latest development in a rocky year for the South Carolina-based casino boat operator. In February, the FBI froze the bank accounts of Stardancer Casino Cruises and accused an Ohio banker of helping finance the casino boats with embezzled money.
The company is embroiled in a longstanding dispute with its rival, Paradise of Port Richey, about the latter company's accusations that Stardancer shuttle boats scour and damage the bottom of the Pithlachascotee River in Port Richey.
This year, according to public records, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service filed federal tax liens of at least $835,000 against Stardancer Casino Inc. in five counties, including Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough.
While law enforcement authorities may not be interested, locals are curious where the 128-foot ship is. So are its employees. In Port Richey, Stardancer employees said they found out about it reading a story in Monday's St. Petersburg Times.
The dock the El Dorado calls home, behind the aquarium and between the Miss Lorraine and the Two Georges, was deserted Monday except for three pelicans and a couple of sea gulls.
On the Miss Lorraine, just returned from a four-day shrimping trip, captain Darryl Cover, 46, wondered aloud where the El Dorado was.
"It was here before I left, now it's gone," he said. The boat usually goes out around 8 a.m. and returns at near midnight, he said. But he hasn't seen it since he returned Sunday afternoon, and he hasn't heard so much as a juicy rumor as to where it went.
"I think David Copperfield had something to do with it," he said.
Fishermen on the Overlook, which docks near the El Dorado, saw the boat Saturday afternoon, in its usual spot 10 miles west of Hudson, near Marker 10. Sunday they noticed it missing.
"Maybe it sank out there," said first mate Fred Kojzar, 77. "I don't know."
There is one upside, said John Georgiou of Dolphin Deep Sea Fishing.
"We don't have to put up with fumes from its stinking generator," he said.
Georgiou's brother, Steve, owner of Anclote Marine Ways, leases the dock space for the El Dorado to Gray. Stardancer bought Steve Georgiou's boat, the Miss Milwaukee, as a shuttle. The company has been current with all its payments to him, he said.
"We had not been notified of anything by the tenants," said Beverley Billiris, a Tarpon Springs city commissioner who rents dock space to Gray for one of the shuttle boats.
Casino folks are a wheeling and dealing bunch, she said.
"They're here today, gone tomorrow," she said. "We don't overreact with these issues. It could be worked out tomorrow. You kind of have to have that attitude or you'd have ulcers."