Gambling Nuke Commander Denies Bombshell Fake Poker Chip Allegations

A high-ranking admiral who once watched over the U.S. nuclear supply has denied any wrongdoing in a Navy investigation into counterfeit chips.

Rear Adm. Timothy M. Giardina was fired last year as the number two commander of U.S. nuclear forces at an early stage of a Navy criminal investigation into the counterfeit chips. At the time, he acknowledged to The Associated Press that he played with the fake chips at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in June 2013. 

His DNA was reportedly discovered on the underside of an adhesive sticker used to alter one of the phony chips.  Sources tell The Associated Press that the mere presence of Giardina’s DNA is not enough evidence to prove he had any involvement in the actual fakery.

The three chips in question were altered with paint and stickers to make genuine $1 casino chips look like $500 chips.

Giardina declined to discuss details with the AP but the news organization has since obtained his statement under the Freedom of Information Act.

From the Associated Press:

Giardina said he deeply regretted having not immediately surrendered to security officers the four chips which he said he found in a toilet stall at the Horseshoe. He said it was an "error of judgment" that he put three of the chips in play at a poker table, and said he was sorry that he subsequently lied in saying he had purchased them from a man in the bathroom.

"I should have either told the truth or remained silent instead of lying about the events when questioned" by an Iowa state investigator on June 18, 2013, he wrote. That was two days after he played the fake chips and casino officials determined they were counterfeits.

He added, "This lapse in judgment does not make me a thief and a criminal."

Giardina also wrote that he does not have a gambling problem. At the time of the casino incident, Giardina was deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, which has responsibility for the nation's entire nuclear weapons force and is based near Omaha, Nebraska.

Giardina wrote that in discussing his case with the commander of Strategic Command at the time, Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, as well as Navy officers and law enforcement officials in Iowa, "the common opinion is that I have a 'gambling problem' and that this gambling problem was my motive" in the counterfeiting. He added that Kehler, who has since retired from the military, felt Giardina had an "obvious gambling problem."

Additionally, Giardina did not acknowledge that he had a gambling problem and stated that he does not consider poker a form of gambling.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com