The Vegas boys would make up one of their patented bullshit stories of how he would play and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in a couple hour visits to Las Vegas. Some crap about him driving down in a Ferrari Testarosa with some broad, dropping in at the Rio and dropping $50 grand on the tables, then drive to the Hilton, buy her a two carat diamond ring for another $30 g's and dropping a couple hundred thousand at the tables there, then driving back to LA in just over two hours. Yah and on and on, and I'm sure he tipped the dealers thousands and rented out the Hard Rock and hired Arrowsmith for his birthday party… whatever.

We've all heard the stories of these big whales before and I wasn't really interested in writing another story of a big whale in Las Vegas. My readers have heard those stories before and probably weren't interested anyway. Besides, most of those stories were more a combination of vanity and a couple shots of Jack Daniels than fact. But when a good friend of mine mailed me the article from the Orange County Register that John David Ward was put away for life I, like most, couldn't care less, besides, I couldn't place the name until I asked who the hell this guy was and the answer came back in an e-mail in three words "The Ice Man".

A small bell went off because I've heard this name somewhere else, so I tapped into an old friend from L.A. who still spends more time at the tables than he does at home. My old buddy Tony "G" from L.A. This guy is a player and knows L.A. like only Victoria knows her secrets. And when I mentioned the name John Ward, Tony retorted immediately "Yah, I know the guy, they called him the Ice Man." That really peaked my interest now that Tony G. knew exactly who he was and this guy didn't waste his time meeting and knowing deadbeats. "Shit, he's dead, or just as good, he's in S.Q. without man." "S.Q.without? What the hell does that mean?" I said innocently. "San Quentin without parole man, like the guys dead, ya know, and too bad for you guys, the guy was a big fucking player, and a big fucking tipper, and he's dead to everyone but the guy that brings his food every day now that he's in 23?" "What's 23 mean?" "Shit man, 23 is when you're locked up 23 hours a day with only an hour in the yard for exercise without contact with anyone, not the other prisoners, not the guards, no visitors. Like you don't exist anymore." Now I had to hear this story, and the story in the Orange County Register, the largest selling newspaper next to the L.A. Times in the city backed up everything Tony was about to tell me.

John David Ward showed up in Las Vegas in early 1998. He drove up to the valet at the Rio in a brand new white Mercedes 500. Maybe the valet parker called him the "Ice Man" from the 4 carat diamond ring he flashed on his pinky along with the $25,000 diamond dial 18kt. Gold Rolex watch, his lady dripping with diamonds and a fur that would bring the coyotes down from Mt. Charleston if they got a sniff of her (and me, if I ever got a sniff of her.)He approached the $100 blackjack table in the high-roller room where Charles his favorite dealer was dealing to a $100-a-hand blackjack player, and gave the guy a $500 pink chip to take another table.

He took out $50,000 in worn and used hundreds and fifties and a few stacks of twenties from a leather shoulder bag he carried and threw the bundles on the green felt table, and claimed the table for himself. Charles laid the bills out on the table, there were so many he could only count out $10,000 at a time, Charles didn't have to call out "Change fifty thousand" since the casino shift boss was standing there behind his shoulder watching the action. It took nearly ten minutes to count out the money, and only seconds to win or lose it. He stuffed the cash into the drop-box and took out fifty of the yellow and black $1,000 chips The Ice Man split the $50,000 in checks in half and placed 25 of the $1,000 checks on one spot and the other $25,000 on the other spot.

Even Charles who had been at the Rio for seven years was a little stiff dealing to that kind of action with the shift boss standing right there breathing down his collar. As a dealer, Charles was paid to do a job and dealt the cards, but inside, even he couldn't conceive of having that kind of money to throw at a few hands of blackjack. Charles dealt him a 16 on one hand and a 19 on the other, then pushed over a Queen on his own. "If you got it, you got it." Charles popped over a Jack for a 20 and picked up the fifty thousand in chips and put them back in the tube he just taken them from." Let me see the next card." John asked and the casino manager nodded, Charles flipped over an 8 that would have busted his 16 anyway.

Maybe the dealers called him the "Ice Man" by the way he pulled out another $50,000 from the leather satchel, cut out $400 and threw it to the dealer and said "incase I lose, I wanna tip you something." "Thanks" Charles said. Then John threw the rest on the table and promptly put up a battle for almost two hours before he finally lost a total of $420,000. One month later he drove up to the Hilton Hotel, this time in a new Porsche Targa and dropped $224,000 on the tables in just over three hours, again in old and used bills, untraceable bills.

The floormen followed procedure correctly. The shift boss contacted the casino manager. "Get him a room and get him dinner and keep me up on him, did you 6A him? He got an I.D.?" (6A refers to the IRS's laws that track any players that buy-in for over $10,000. The player must submit a driver's license and social security number when he hits that limit and all cash transactions are tracked from there on.) The shift boss had his orders, but the Ice Man only wanted champagne and a little dinner and he was back to L.A. a quarter million bucks lighter in the loafers. Cash like that didn't come from picking oranges or driving a truck for a living.

Cash like that draws eyes anywhere else in the world, but in Las Vegas it's business as usual. No one asks what you do for a living or how you got the money, they just want to know how much you're willing to part with before they can make room for another player. But when that kind of money gets tossed the IRS get interested. And when the IRS gets interested, they make sure surveillance in all the casinos tracks the big players from casino to casino, and this guy really rang the bells with all that cash. In the gaming industry, mouths stay shut, praying that no one notices as the thousands are slipped in and out of the tables' cash boxes a thousand here, a thousand there, but when hundreds of thousands are slammed into the boxes in just under two hours, the IRS gets their hooks in and won't let loose until they get their cut no matter who you are. It's only after that when the other agencies get their call.

And the first call was to the FBI.

The first question, who was this guy that dropped over $700,000 in small untraceable bills in just hours at a time? And we all know the next question…where did he get the cash? The only thing the casinos were responsible for was to track the guys play, and get a valid drivers license and social security number. They didn't have to give him a piss test, or call the cops, or even get a good print off his drink glass, they just had to ask for his identification then kneel at his feet as he gambled and lost hundreds of thousands. But it was the IRS's call now and they decided something wasn't quite right, so after watching the guys play for a couple hours, they placed the call to the FBI.

The FBI have access to all the surveillance cameras in every casino in Nevada, they don't need any warrants to come over to any casino surveillance center, buy a round of buttered popcorn for the crew and sit back and watch TV for a few hours. But even they weren't sure who he was, and called the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) who took the video feed from the FBI and identified John David as a small time Meth user.

He was arrested once on a small possession charge so the huge amounts of money being thrown on the table was troublesome and called for an investigation, and the investigation that followed was one of the most extensive they've ever undertaken. They planted bugs in his Vegas suits, planted shills at the tables to get friendly with him, as well as following him in Los Angeles and his frequent trips to Hawaii. And when the smoke cleared, they uncovered a Methamphetamine trail that lead from L.A. to Hawaii. Out on the outskirts of the small high-desert town of Twenty-Nine Palms was a house where they were synthesizing the most powerful form of Meth-Amphetamine, a drug called ICE.

Now the bell rings, the light bulb comes on and we all realize at the same time just why John David Ward was called the ICE MAN. But this wasn't just a Meth lab; they also uncovered a computer, and there on the hard-drive were the names and information on all the drug dealers from L.A., but more important, were also the biggest names in the DEA files from the island of Hawaii. This guy was supplying the entire island chain of Hawaii with Ice, at the tune of over a million dollars a week in profits. And John was going to make sure he spent it all, and the boys in Las Vegas were going to make sure he spent it with them. So they wouldn't give away the set-up, the FBI made sure it was business as usual when he hit the Strip, and the casinos were more than happy to oblige, since this guy couldn't win a hand if you laid the cards face up and told him to pick a card, any card.

Private Lear jets were sent to pick the Ice Man up in L.A. for only a couple hours of gambling if he wanted, he would shower in the now well-amplified high rollers suit, then play, and though he was a decent player and sometimes beat the casinos, he usually lost tens of thousands, grab a quick gourmet meal that would be served to an empty table as he gambled in the casino, then run in, eat a little, run back out while waiting for desert and play a little more. Then back to the airport and home by daylight. They loved this guy, when things got slow in September, the Ice Man came in for two days at Mandalay Bay, lost over $200 grand, and made their month.

But the boys in Vegas knew this wouldn't last long, this guy wasn't a rock star, so either he was stealing the money or was selling drugs, either way, they didn't care as long as he was losing. They knew the FBI was ready to come down on him, so they drained the lake as fast as possible. But then came his downfall. John bought himself a nice little Ferrari Testarosa with some loose change he hand and took a drive up to Las Vegas, he had his briefcase stuffed with cash and decided he should have jumped on the jet and saved the two extra hours drive time, so with his new Ferrari he would make up the time. The FBI tail lost him somewhere in Riverside and by the time they contacted the Highway Patrol it took them until Barstow to catch up to him.

CHP clocked him at 127 at top speed when he ran out of gas and they had him. Unable to explain the $325,000 in cash he had on the front seat, he didn't have much choice, it would be breakfast at the police lock-up in Barstow, rather than cracked crab at the Mirage. The DEA wasn't far behind and when they finally uncovered the entire operation they found almost $6 million dollars in cash in one of his houses alone. He was smuggling Ice into the islands for a while and had a net of cargo ships and planes on regular schedules to smuggle it for him. They confiscated six houses, eight luxury cars including a Rolls Royce in his Palmdale home that was never even driven.

He went to court, and tried with a straight face to defend himself that all the money was from gambling winnings. One by one the casino hosts were paraded on to the stand where they testified they hardly ever saw John win anything, he always lost. If he won for a while, it would surely be gone before he left town. Now when I tell you the numbers that's one thing, but when these guys got on the stand and started running down the losses it was staggering. $425,000 in one hour, thirty-five minutes at the Hilton, $221,000 lost to the Mirage in sixty-five minutes. But that wasn't all there was to it. He had constant protection for his business thanks to Rusty Coons, the long-time infamous president of the Hell's Angles west coast chapter, who's still being questioned in his roll.

He also had inside information thanks to another associate Brian Kazarian, a one time Orange County District Attorney who managed to keep him one step in front of the law for years with his inside information. He's also in quite a bit of trouble for harboring and assisting a fugitive. Even his parents were a part of his network. He used them to stash his cash until there was just too much to hide, and he became too vain to try and hide it. Once he decided to spend the money, the end was surely near.

At the trial, he could only rely on the mercy of the judge and jury, but they were having none of it and found him guilty of all federal charges in less than two hours. So now he'll spend his time locked away for the rest of his life since the judge gave him life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now his parents will have to make regular deposits in the prison bank if he wants extra candy or cigarettes. Now the Ice Man will be chilling in San Quentin Prison, forever preserved, the only reminder of his high-roller days in Las Vegas is the ringing of the slot machines in his ears and the fact that he still gets constant mail from the casino hosts inviting him to come out to Las Vegas for a free weekend on them.

Doesn't look good Ice Man, doesn't look good.

--Ken Pearlman