Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2000 | 11:13 a.m.
Until Tuesday Jihad Hassan Moukalled would have been viewed as a typical Las Vegas high-roller.
On Tuesday that image came to a horrific end. After returning from a trip to the Las Vegas Strip's MGM Grand, police say the 42-year-old small-business owner took the lives of his pregnant wife and his three children, then his own. In his Farmington Hills, Mich., home, police found a suicide note blaming gambling addiction -- and $225,000 in shredded casino markers.
"I never ever had a bad intent toward anyone," Moukalled scrawled Tuesday on a single sheet of paper. "I think that I was gripped by the hope of 'one more shot.' I did not know how else to escape what I got myself into. It is over.
"There is nothing more destructive to life than gambling. A drug addict destroys his life, a gambler destroys his life and the lives of those he cares about and care about him."
The victims were identified as his wife, Fatima, 31; daughter Aya, 7; son Adam, 5; and daughter Lila, who would have turned 3 on Saturday.
"The news regarding Mr. Moukalled and his family is extremely tragic," said Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Grand owner MGM MIRAGE. "Out of respect for the entire family, it would be inappropriate for us to offer any further public comment."
Early indications are that Moukalled's gambling addiction had taken a heavy financial toll on his life. Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer said Moukalled's Oak Park printing business had amassed $500,000 in debts because Moukalled withdrew the money to cover his gambling. Three credit cards found inside the house carried $60,000 in debt, Dwyer said.
"Over the past two years, he's been making weekly trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, gambling large sums of money," Dwyer said. "According to a statement by one of the relatives, he was gambling all over the place."
Moukalled had returned home at 4 a.m. Tuesday from Las Vegas. During the three-day trip, police said Moukalled had asked his business to deposit $85,000 into a bank account with hopes the money could be transferred to a Las Vegas casino. The bank wouldn't honor the check.
Despite the fact that Moukalled had markers drawn from the MGM Grand, a source familiar with his Las Vegas play said that he was strictly a cash player. Markers don't necessarily indicate credit play, since a player can deposit a large sum of money at a cage, then draw against these funds with markers.
Gaming industry observers believe that the industry will take a hard hit from the tragedy, though they argued this morning that the MGM Grand shouldn't necessarily be blamed for what happened. Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the heinous nature of Moukalled's actions suggest that he'd had problems far beyond his gambling addiction.
"That's pretty extreme," Eadington said. "Most compulsive gamblers are very introspective ... when they turn, they turn against themselves. This is a case where a person is lashing out against everyone around him.
"Was gambling the only thing wrong with this person? Someone who has just lost a quarter million (dollars) in markers has lost touch with reality, and is headed to the brink."
Still, Eadington believes the tragedy should prompt a review of the procedures casinos use when making decisions to extend credit to patrons.
"Nevada has a tradition of letting the companies use their own standards," Eadington said. "You do run the risk that some people will run up debt far beyond their ability to repay. But it sounds like he had a record of paying up.
"MGM has been a fairly active member of the Nevada Council of Problem Gambling. This issue becomes a case when you have to ask, 'Did they practice what they preach?' The real issue of determining culpability would have to involve what happened, what kind of judgment management used. Someone has to be aware of the steps along the way."
Bobby Siller, a member of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, expressed sadness over the deaths, and said the control board will ask for information on Moukalled's markers. But he stopped short of saying there would be a full investigation.
"We would obviously want information surrounding his gambling in Las Vegas, and would want to determine what is factual and what is non-factual," Siller said. "We want to ensure there were no regulatory violations or inconsistencies."
Siller said the board would look at whether MGM Grand officials understood Moukalled's credit limits and his wagering habits. But he said there was "no reason to believe" MGM Grand had violated Nevada regulations, and said it would be unfair to blame the industry for the tragedy.
"Life has choices, and gaming is no different than most things in life," Siller said. "Do we change a whole industry? I don't think so. Did we do everything possible to identify the potential of this person taking this drastic action? That's what we'd want to know.
"This is an unfortunate situation that shouldn't be looked at for or against gaming. It's an individual tragedy ... and people have to be responsible for themselves and their own lives. If we can do more to detect this and prevent it, that's a good thing. We should learn from this."
But Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, said the Moukalled murder-suicide is yet another example of the harm caused by the spread of gambling.
"If this was the only death related to gambling, I'd pass it off as anecdotal," Grey said. "But pretty soon, you have to begin asking if this is harmless entertainment like the movies. I haven't seen people come home and shoot their families after watching too many movies.
"What we're dealing with here is a problem that has tremendous potential for disaster. What we're getting now is a clear realization that you pay the price. In this case, we have innocent people involved."
Grey acknowledged that such problems occur wherever there is gambling, referring to the suicide of a Detroit police officer in the MotorCity Casino last year. But he also pinned blame squarely on Las Vegas and its gaming industry.
"Las Vegas companies are now controlling gambling throughout the country, and it is a Las Vegas question at this point," Grey said. "Their feeder markets are across the nation now, and ultimately their product is a Las Vegas product.
"However long it will take, they will have to become accountable for every bankruptcy, every death. They're going to need their lawyers, because they'll be defending their product. The public is not going to continue to pick up and clean up after this product at their own expense, and at some point, the politicians are going to turn on them."
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab-American News in Detroit and a friend of Moukalled for 14 years, said he knew Moukalled was a "heavy gambler" and had told him to quit the habit before it "ruined" his life.
Siblani said Moukalled was losing money from a $2.5 million investment he had helped make in Great Lakes Color Printing Co. when the mid-sized printing company lost three major accounts with Chrysler, General Motors and Ford.
"Moukalled's company lost those three accounts when the major auto industry players made a switch and began to centralize their printing processes. They cut back on the many printers they used to have to just a few," he said. "He was suffering from this."
Other friends and family were in disbelief over the deaths.
"I didn't know that his gambling problem existed to that extend. We didn't suspect that it was such a chronic problem," said Ned Fawaz, chairman of the Detroit-based Islamic Center of America, where Moukalled was a founding member.
"This man will not be able to do such a crime," said Fawaz, a long-time friend. "I still don't believe he has himself killed his family. There must be some other element involved. I've gone fishing with him many times, and he can't even harm a fish."
"He's very gentle with his children and wife and is a good father and provider," he said. "What happened is a mystery. A man of such caliber could not do such a crime."
Fawaz said he wasn't aware of where and when he gambled in Las Vegas but said Moukalled most likely went on his gaming trips by himself.
Imad Hamad, a midwest regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), where Moukalled was also a member, said Moukalled is known to have gambled in casinos in Windsor, Canada, and two other casinos in nearby Detroit -- MotorCity and the MGM Grand. "Friends that knew him knew that he had financial problems. But none of us were under the impression that it was all that bad," he said. "He never gave any impression that he was in bad shape. He borrowed money from friends, but not on a heavy scale."
"We're still in disbelief that he would go as far as to kill his family," Hamad said. "Everyone knew how much he loved his children."
"People who knew the guy doubt if he would commit suicide," he said. "Maybe, there's a third-party involvement, the possibility of murder. Why should he come back from Las Vegas to commit suicide here? Why not just himself? Why his family too? And the note that he left, that's not the emotion of someone who feels the pain of what he's doing."
"The family is requesting a thorough investigation and keeping all options open," he said. "They're not surrendering to the fact that it's a suicide act. Because there's a possibility of murder, investigations may go into his financial records too."
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