Albany

Jim Cerniglia had a direct line to the superintendent's office.

If another correction officer at Albany County jail needed a favor — a day off to attend a wedding, an extra shift to pay some bills — Cerniglia could always get an audience with the superintendent.

Some of his fellow correction officers even nicknamed him "The Mayor," they said, because Cerniglia walked around the jail like he ran the place.

He also was a bookmaker, which was no secret to dozens of people who worked with him at the jail. Cerniglia and another former correction officer, Timothy Robillard, ran a bustling gambling operation and regularly took bets from their fellow jail officers, as well as local police officers, teachers and even high school coaches.

Among their clients was the longtime jail superintendent, Tom Wigger, who apparently turned a blind eye to his officers' illicit side business. Wigger, who became superintendent in 2002, routinely placed his own bets and loaned money to jail employees who couldn't pay their debts, according to people familiar with the case.

The loans were usually doled out from a pile of cash that Wigger kept in a safe in his office, according to officers who saw it. Wigger's son, Scott, who is a lobbyist in Albany, also placed bets with the jail officers, according to records obtained by the Times Union.

Yet Wigger's role in the backdrop of the jailhouse gambling case was never made public. He abruptly retired in March 2013, less than two weeks before Cerniglia and Robillard were arrested. Their cases were a small part of an international undercover FBI investigation that led to the federal indictments in Oklahoma of more than 60 defendants, including two dozen corporations linked to online gambling sites.

The jail superintendent's sudden departure last year rankled a few law enforcement officials in the gambling investigation, who privately questioned whether Wigger's decision to retire at age 57 was linked to the case.

Sheriff Craig Apple, whose department's probe of the jailhouse bookmakers spurred the broader federal investigation, said he doesn't believe anyone tipped off Wigger. The sheriff said Wigger planned to retire in 2012 but agreed to stay on another year after the retirement of former Sheriff James Campbell.

After the arrests last year, investigators with the Albany County district attorney's office began investigating Wigger's dealings with the jailhouse bookmaking operation, including information that the suspects were tipped off before their arrests.

Robillard ran his bookmaking business through a Panamanian-based website, BettorDays Sportsbook, that was among the online sites targeted in the larger investigation. His clients, including Tom and Scott Wigger, set up accounts and placed their bets through the website. The use of websites has become more widespread as bookmakers believe the offshore websites insulate them from U.S. criminal investigations.

The investigation began more than three years ago in the Albany County sheriff's narcotics unit. Federal authorities joined the case when it led to a larger network of bookmaking operators across the country and in Central America and Jamaica, where loose regulations made it easier to set up online gambling sites and massive call centers that employed hundreds of people and brought their U.S. operators millions of dollars in profits.

The FBI used undercover agents and informants to penetrate the larger organization, whose leaders flew private jets and lived in estate-style homes.

In the summer of 2011, the local investigation was gaining traction when sheriff's Investigator Gary McMullen began transcribing a court-authorized wiretap of Robillard's mobile phone.

At 3:42 p.m. on a Tuesday that July, Robillard, who lives in Clifton Park, received a call that was among hundreds of calls and emails monitored through court-authorized eavesdropping. The call confirmed Wigger's personal dealings with the bookmakers.

Cerniglia, in a conversation marked by foul language and jail jargon, explained to his buddy that Wigger wasn't happy that Robillard called in sick to play a free round of golf at Saratoga National, one the area's premier public golf courses.

"I go Tom, listen, he understands. Saratoga National, Tom, are you kidding me? It's free," Cerniglia said, according to a copy of the wiretap transcript reviewed by the Times Union. "I go Tom, don't worry ... a bottle, definitely a bottle. A big one. He goes: 'Two big ones.'"

The bottles, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation, was a reference to an alleged regular practice whereby Robillard and other officers brought Wigger bottles of high-priced liquor in exchange for favors. To get around the jail's strict rules on contraband, the officers — or sometimes Cerniglia on their behalf — would telephone Wigger from the parking lot; in his second-floor office overlooking his reserved parking spot, one former officer said, Wigger would stroll to his window and unlock his car doors using a remote control.

An officer familiar with the practice said Wigger liked high-priced vodka and Irish whiskey.

"We never brought them in. He would look out his window," said the former officer, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. "It was 20 guys giving him bottles of liquor. ... Yeah, guys would call in sick and didn't want to go to the doctor. He would approve it. Everybody went to Cerniglia because he was tight with Wigger."

In the wiretapped conversation, Robillard and Cerniglia also discussed whether to erase a gambling debt for Wigger's son, Scott, according to a transcript of the call.

"Well, his son, his son owes me a hundred bucks so I'll just tell him to keep it," Robillard said.

"No, he don't want the money," Cerniglia answered, adding: "He don't want that. He wants the bottles, he don't want the hundred bucks. Just give me the hundred bucks, I'll get the bottles for him."

Wigger, who was never accused of wrongdoing, did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story. His son, Scott, also did not respond to requests for an interview.

In their post-arrest probe, the Albany County district attorney's office worried about leaks. An investigator and assistant District Attorney Linda Griggs, who heads the public integrity unit, rented private hotel rooms, with curtains drawn, when they debriefed Robillard and Cerniglia about their dealings with Wigger and who may have tipped them off to the investigation, according to a person familiar with the interviews.

The investigators probed Wigger's practice of loaning officers money from a safe in his office, and also examined allegations that jail officers were allowed to pay other officers cash to work their shifts.

A spokesperson for District Attorney David Soares issued a statement last week saying the office would not comment on specifics of the investigation because "it was based primarily on wiretaps that the law prohibits us from discussing."

"Our post-arrest investigation focused on whether the probe into gambling activities at the Albany County Correctional Facility had been compromised by improper disclosures," the statement reads. "Any information relating to personnel decisions at the jail was therefore ancillary to that inquiry."

Apple, who took over the department in 2011, said he was not aware of allegations that Wigger sanctioned the gambling ring, took part in placing bets or accepted liquor as gifts from officers.

"He ran that place ... he did a good job up there," Apple said. "If he was getting anything, liquor, that was something I certainly didn't know anything about."

Cerniglia could not be reached for comment. Robillard's attorney, Michael McDermott of Albany, said his client declined to be interviewed for this story.

The jailhouse bookmaking operation ended on April 10, 2013, when Cerniglia and Robillard were arrested as they reported to work at the jail. Their arrests drew attention in the Capital Region, but were only a footnote in the larger case, which included the arrest of Spiros "The Greek" Athanas, 54, a mall developer from Gilford, N.H., who federal authorities say set up illegal sports booking companies in Panama and Jamaica.

Mike Lyons, a deputy superintendent at the jail who is close with Wigger, said that three law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, investigated the case but never implicated Wigger or other jail officials in any wrongdoing.

"Tom gave 32 years of his life to this department and he worked hard and he moved up and he helped a lot of people — he was a mentor," Lyons said. "The feds and the DA's office and the sheriff's (department) conducted an investigation on the gambling that went on here, and none of the three charged him with anything or arrested him. To me, that would dictate that he didn't do anything."

With his retirement benefits, Wigger, 57, who lives in Bethlehem, receives a gross pension of $5,291 a month, according to the state comptroller's office. Cerniglia, 48, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and avoided any jail sentence, remained on the county's payroll for eight months following his arrest. That enabled him to retire, with full benefits, on Dec. 31 and he collects a pension of $2,085 a month, according to the state comptroller's office. Robillard, meanwhile, lost his job at the jail, where he worked since 1991, and won't be eligible to collect his pension for another nine years, when he turns 55.

Among the four Capital Region residents charged in the case, Robillard was the only defendant made to plead guilty to a felony, in part, because he wouldn't identify the law enforcement officials who may have provided information to a relative of Robillard's who tipped him off of his impending arrest two days before it took place.

The tip-off prompted Robillard and Cerniglia, as well as a longtime bookie from Clifton Park, Craig Hayner, who was their associate, to destroy evidence, including hiding cash, before they were arrested, according to law enforcement officials. The district attorney's office investigated the leak but never determined who was responsible.

blyons@timesunion.com • 518-454-5547 • @blyonswriter