The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has issued an arrest warrant for Bryan Sagbigsal, the former "Hustler Casino Live" employee who was seen on casino security video stealing $15,000 in chips from the stack of Robbi Jade Lew, immediately following the controversial streamed game wherein Garrett Adelstein accused Lew of cheating in a bizarrely played hand.
News of the warrant being issued come from Los Angeles Times reporter Andrea Chang, who has tracked both the Adelstein/Lew saga and the strange Sagbigsal side story since October. Chang posted on Twitter, "Quick poker saga update: The L.A. County D.A.'s office told me today that it has filed charges against Bryan Sagbigsal. The former Hustler Casino Live employee, accused of stealing $15,000 from Robbi Jade Lew, faces two counts of grand theft; an arrest warrant has been issued."
To date, the district attorney's office has issued no other statement regarding the Sagbigsal matter. The "grand theft" label applies to cases where the cash amount or value of the stolen items exceeds $950, and it can become a felony-theft matter is the value exceeds $5,000. If so charged, and found guilty, Sagbigsal could face a maximum three years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine under California law. Chang's tweet also implies that the investigation was referred to the L.A. County prosecutors after a Gardena police detective initially interviewed Lew about the theft.
Sagbigsal allegedly to turn himself in
The open question in this matter remains Sagbigsal's current whereabouts. The Gardena police conducted their own day-long search for Sagbigsal in late October but came up empty. The search included a stop at the house of Sagbigsal's former girlfriend's parents, in Long Beach, but police learned he had been kicked out two weeks earlier, immediately after a L.A. Times news team led by Chang confronted Sagbigsal at that residence.
While a late-October, traffic-grabbing headline from Chang's outlet reported that Sagbigsal "elude[d] arrest" in connection with the Gardena police department search, it's not clear whether an actual arrest warrant had been issued at that time, or whether the Gardena PD only wanted him for questioning at that time. What Chang did report is that Sagbigsal did not answer calls Gardena police made to his cel phone at that time.
However, Sagbigsal was in contact with at least one former HCL co-worker, Patrick Curran, who in turn reported to PokerNews that he'd "been in contact with Sagbigsal and expects the accused thief to eventually turn himself in to authorities." Six weeks later, Sagbigsal has not followed through on that expectation.
Featured image source: Hustler Casino Live (Far left: Bryan Sagbigsal affixes Robbi Jade Lew's mic before the streamed game gets underway.)
