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Briana Rios, a 19-year-old from South Florida who recently attended Miami Senior High School, was arrested for illegally running a gambling house. The original owner left it to her when he fled to the Dominican Republic, Rios’ boyfriend explained, and said that, “She’s young. She’s a little girl. She’s 19 years old. She didn’t know what she was doing.” He claimed she was a mere employee and not the mastermind.
Rios’ attorney, Public Defender Terry Conover, also said that she was just a clerk. The judge, however, countered. “It looks like there were a lot of customers going in here. You even had allegedly had computers inside to help you place the bets,” said Judge John Hurley. “This doesn’t look like a small, penny ante operation. Seems like a pretty big operation.”
How big? Solis, the ex-boyfriend of Rios, says that she was raking in $10,000 a day or more, which, considering bookies make about 10 per cent, means that the girl could have been making $300,000 a year.
Rios claims that bets were placed on NFL, NBA and Hockey events. Her neighbors are surprised. “I saw her on the place a couple of times,” said Courtney Hutchinson who is one of the owners of the H&M Bar. “But she looked like an innocent young lady going in there to transfer money somewhere.”
