2 to plead guilty in $3.5 million bingo scam

INDIANAPOLIS -- A college professor and a retired accountant are expected to plead guilty this week to felony charges in a bingo scam that skimmed more than $3.5 million in profits from bingo parlors.\nProsecutors say Fred Draper, a suspended Indiana State University professor, and Willie Ryan, a retired Eli Lilly and Co. accountant, were the ringleaders in the 2001 Marion County bingo scam.\nBoth men are expected to plead guilty to felony charges Wednesday in Marion Superior Court. Each faces up to eight years in prison.\nAccording to documents filed last week, the two will agree to pay a total of $700,000 in restitution to the charities that sponsored the bingo games at Indianapolis bingo operations.\nDraper and Ryan are the last of the 11 people charged in a two-year probe to enter pleas.\nAnother ringleader, Michael Frechette, a former Medford, Mass. police officer, signed a plea agreement in August to repay $1 million and spend up to eight years in prison.\nFrechette will be sentenced Wednesday, as will Ryan. Draper, who is ill, will be sentenced later. Eight others have also pleaded guilty.\nProsecutors say Draper, Ryan and Frechette siphoned $3.57 million from pull-tab sales at the four bingo halls. The trio took their cut of bingo parlor cash and kept records using a handwritten code, court records show.\nThey made the games appear less profitable by laundering money through a check cashing service and destroying some paperwork.\nThe money that was skimmed included $191,000 from the Consortium Foundation, which owes more than $13,000 in tuition for three scholarship recipients, according to court documents.