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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Mark Heltzel was living &#8220;the American dream.&#8221;</p><p>But a loving family and the prosperity brought by a successful career in finance was gambled away when the father of two exceeded his grasp and participated in a criminal scheme that defrauded Mohegan Sun Pocono out of $420,147, prosecutors said at Heltzel&#8217;s sentencing Friday in federal court.</p><p>&#8220;He was living what everybody would call &#8216;the American dream,&#8217;&#8221; Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Olshefski said. &#8220;Apparently, that was not enough.&#8221;</p><p>Heltzel, 52, of Dallas, received an 18-month federal prison sentence for his guilty plea to a felony count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Heltzel gambled at the Plains Township casino using rewards cards loaded with bogus free play credits, winning $420,147 from May 2014 to April 2015.</p><p>In a tearful apology with his school teacher wife at his side, Heltzel acknowledged he couldn&#8217;t differentiate between right and wrong when faced with the scheme. He should have known better, he said, and he&#8217;s dearly paid for it.</p><p>Heltzel said he&#8217;s been undergoing counseling for alcohol and gambling addictions for the past two years. He claimed it saved his life.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I would be here today had I not hit rock bottom,&#8221; Heltzel said.</p><p>His attorney, Demetrius Fannick, described him as a &#8220;professional,&#8221; &#8220;well-educated&#8221; man whose lapse of judgment was out of character. Fannick said Heltzel&#8217;s casual gambling and drinking got out of hand and &#8220;snowballed&#8221; on him. In the end, Heltzel lost everything &#8212; except the support of his family.</p><p>His wife, Karen, a teacher in the Dallas School District, said her husband strived to be number one in everything. She asked a judge to give Heltzel the chance to be number one in &#8220;redemption,&#8221; saying Heltzel was sorry and wanted to return to being productive in his home and business life.</p><p>Olshefski argued &#8220;everyone is sorry when they get caught.&#8221;</p><p>She noted Heltzel only stopped participating in the scheme when investigators caught on. There was no telling if he would have stopped otherwise, she said, adding a sentence outside the standard range would send the wrong message to other offenders.</p><p>U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo said Heltzel didn&#8217;t make a single mistake, but a series of missteps carried out for more than a year.</p><p>&#8220;You lived &#8216;the American dream,&#8221; Caputo said. &#8220;You had family support. Not all defendants have that.&#8221;</p><p>Caputo ordered Heltzel to split restitution with codefendant Robert Pellegrini, the former casino executive who the judge deemed &#8220;most responsible&#8221; for the scheme.</p><p>Pellegrini, 51, of Fairview Township, is serving 32 months in federal prison. At sentencing, he told a judge he stole to support a gambling addiction. Prosecutors argued it was greed.</p><p>A third player in the scheme, former cocktail waitress Rochelle Poszeluznyj, of Kingston, is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.</p><p>Prosecutors said Poszeluznyj stole casino patrons&#8217; personal identification numbers and passed them on to Pellegrini, who used the numbers to create duplicate rewards he then gave to Heltzel. Heltzel turned about $478,000 in phony free play credits into a $420,147 profit, prosecutors said.</p><p>After Heltzel, a casino regular, complained to management when he overheard employees talking about his personal finances, he was introduced to Pellegrini, then the vice president of player development, who awarded him $10,000 in free play at $1,000 weekly increments, according to court documents.</p><p>The award led Heltzel to become a fixture at the Plains Township casino, and a friendship developed between him and Pellegrini. Heltzel was approached with the scheme by Pellegrini and &#8220;succumbed to temptation,&#8221; court documents said.</p><p>Heltzel must report to the federal Bureau of Prisons by Sept. 5.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Mark Heltzel, of Dallas, leaves the federal courthouse in Wilkes-Barre after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering earlier this year. He was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Friday for his role in a scheme that netted $420,000 from the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino using phony rewards cards. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_casinoheltzelCMYK-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Mark Heltzel, of Dallas, leaves the federal courthouse in Wilkes-Barre after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering earlier this year. He was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Friday for his role in a scheme that netted $420,000 from the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino using phony rewards cards. </caption0><photoCredit0>Times Leader file </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Joe Dolinsky</p><p>jdolinsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Joe Dolinsky at 570-991-6110 or on Twitter @JoeDolinskyTL.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Federal prison awaits Dallas man who gambled away ‘American dream’