Card Player Magazine Controller Alleged Theft Indictment Over More Than $1 Million Has Plenty of Mystery to Story

Posted on: August 31, 2018, 04:15h. 

Last updated on: August 31, 2018, 04:15h.

Lucas Thomas Read More

Expertise: Sports Betting, Sports.

How did a Card Player magazine controller manage to allegedly steal $1.1 million over the course of five years without anyone noticing until after she resigned? Those are the questions being raised since Thursday’s indictment of Shelby McCann — who also goes by Anna McCann — an indictment which includes 23 counts of theft and one count of unlawful acts regarding computers.

Also mysterious is why the rather high-profile case — which involves two of the Las Vegas poker community’s better bankrolled power players in Barry and Allyn Shulman — was only covered in the MSM by Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVR-J) court beat reporter David Ferrara when it broke on Thursday, despite McCann having been extradited from Hawaii, where she was arrested way back in May.

According to the indictment, McCann is alleged to have funneled the money from Card Player magazine, where she worked as a financial controller from 2011-2016.

She is accused by a Clark County District Attorney of using the magazine’s money for her own use, including for credit card paydowns, personal expenses, and even giving herself an unauthorized raise.

Although the charges seem to indicate a clear case of alleged embezzlement, all the charges but one were for theft. Even the Shulmans themselves have referred to McCann’s acts as “embezzlement.”

Two Sides to the Story

McCann’s family strongly denies the claims, however. On a Go Fund Me (GFM) page that was shut down suddenly on Friday afternoon, the accountant attempted unsuccessfully to raise money for legal expenses: in three months, she had only raised $468 of a $20,000 goal.

Her husband Benjamin McCann said Card Player magazine is claiming that most of McCann’s take at the company was fraudulent, which he virulently contests:

This is vindictive retaliation and I am fully motivated to defend Anna and punish the individuals responsible for inflicting this type of harm to her and our family,” Benjamin McCann wrote on the now-shut-down page.

Details of her Hawaii arrest and extradition proceedings are also non-existent, which is again unusual in a case of this magnitude. McCann was arrested while living in Captain Cook, Hawaii, where she lived with Benjamin and three children shown clearly on the GFM page, even since its shutdown.

Benjamin McCann wrote on the crowdsourcing page three months ago, however, saying:

“Currently Anna can do nothing but sit in jail here in Hawaii. 2 separate attorneys have informed me that I can’t even get a hearing for bail reduction or to throw the case out until she is moved to Nevada. Best case scenario right now is she sits in jail for another 35 days or so because Nevada decides to not come pick her up.

Personally, I hope this speeds up and we get a chance in court. I personally am looking forward to ripping a Metro detective’s lazy investigative skills apart and calling out some professional liars in front of a judge,” Benjamin McCann added on the GFM page.

What Took Them So Long?

The real mystery here is why it took seven years to bring McCann to justice in the matter. At some point after McCann resigned in 2016, the Shulmans — who own Card Player — said they noticed the money was missing when they went to pay for their own company’s expenses.

“All of a sudden there was no money to pay the bills…what the heck is going on?” Allyn Shulman told the R-J.

The charges against McCann constitute a category B felony in Nevada, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. It is unclear if she has any legal representation, and no trial date was announced in Ferrara’s story.