2 years prison for man who bilked Aurora, Elgin casinos out of $50,000
A Chinese national pleaded guilty Thursday to bilking casinos in Kane County and other counties out of more than $50,000 in 2013 and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Xueliang Li, 59, of Flushing, N.Y., faced up to 15 years in prison after prosecutors charged him in March with 11 felonies, including wire fraud, identity theft, defrauding a financial institution and use of a forged credit card.
Kane County Judge Susan Clancy Boles accepted the plea, in which prosecutors dismissed other, more serious charges.
Li, who was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and had a Chinese interpreter present in court, could have received up to five years in prison on the wire fraud charge.
Assistant Illinois Attorney General Jill Kolinski said Li went to casinos in Kane, Will and Tazewell counties on "multiple occasions" between March 6 and 11, 2013, and used fraudulent credit cards connected to the accounts of Canadian citizens to buy $3,000 "comp checks" that Li later cashed and kept for himself.
Kolinski said Li stole $50,480.
Authorities have said the two local casinos were the Grand Victoria in Elgin and Hollywood Casino in Aurora.
Li and another man were convicted of a similar offense in 2013 at an Indiana casino and sentenced to two years in Indiana State prison before they were ordered to be extradited and accused of crimes in Illinois in March 2014 when the Kane County charges were filed.
Xin Chen, 55, of Flushing, N.Y., died of cancer before he could be extradited to Kane County and the charges were dropped.
Under state law, Li can have his sentence cut in half for good behavior while in prison. He also gets credit for more than five months served at the Kane County jail while being held on $500,000 bail while the case was pending.
Kolinski said the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement also has put a hold on Li, meaning after he is released from prison, he could be deported.