Maureen O’Connor: Former San Diego Mayor Bet More Than $1 Billion as a Result of Gambling Addiction [View all]
As Maureen OConnor stood in court Thursday somberly admitting over the course of years that she had bet a total of more than $1 billion in casinos due to her compulsive gambling, it was the sad culmination of an addiction that dismantled a vast fortune and left her broke and in failing health.
The former mayor of San Diego and widow of millionaire Jack-in-the-Box restaurant chain founder Robert Peterson, who died in 1994 lost a total of $13 million to casinos, and confessed to taking $2.1 million from her husbands charitable foundation only to blow it on video poker. But it didnt end there. Court records show OConnor liquidated her savings, sold a number of properties, auctioned her valuables and took out second and third mortgages on her home in La Jolla, Calif. all of it to only rack up extensive gambling debts.
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/02/15/maureen-oconnor-former-san-diego-mayor-bet-more-than-1-billion-as-a-result-of-gambling-addiction/#ixzz2Kzezi9KD