Report: U.S. Senator Misused Funds To Pay For Online Gambling

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

According to a report in the Denver Post, a Republican politician is being accused of embezzling funds to pay online gambling debts.

The report states that a felony arrest warrant has been issued for Larry Carillo, former Larimer County Republican Chairman. In the 17 page complaint, Mr. Carillo stands accused of inappropriately taking $17,696 from the Republican Party to pay for, among other things, online gambling.

Carillo had served as the party's chairman from February 2009 until the 28th of February this year, when he resigned after being confronted by party heads, who questioned him about failing to file finance reports.

Once officials started looking at finance records, it was clear something was wrong.

"We started going through receipts and piecing things together because there was no accounting done in the two years Carillo was in office," said Larimer County's assessor and treasurer of the county GOP. "There was a lot of stuff that just didn't make sense."

An affidavit reveals that there were 21 withdrawals from the Republican Party account made out to "Linwood Payment Systems", a shell payment processor created by Homeland Security to identify illegal online betting activities.

It is not clear as to which site accepted Mr. Carillo's transaction.