Casino.org has uncovered new details about John and Lydia Salmen, the older couple arrested for stealing more than $652K in cash and casino chips from the cashier’s cage at Nevada’s Primm Valley Casino on July 19.
Though income is not always a reliable indicator of financial status — especially among regular players at casinos — John Salmen, 63, most likely earned a six-figure salary on his own for most of the past five years.
That’s a relevant fact because Las Vegas police said they discovered a medical bill for $12,039 in the couple’s Las Vegas home, as well as a note from their health insurance provider stating that it refused to pay for certain medications. In fact, their arrest report described the medical debt as a “possible motive” for the heist. (At the time of this writing, it is not yet known what the medical bill was for, and which of the two suspects incurred it.)
Under the Weather
John Salmen worked as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) for more than 20 years. That’s a fact not yet published by any media outlet covering this story — including the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which quoted Salmen about the weather at least 139 times between Feb. 16, 2009 and Jan. 26 of this year.
According to weather.gov, someone with Salmen’s seniority at the NWS should have been earning at least $100K per year.
A native of South Dakota, John graduated from Brown High School and Black Hills State College and worked for a while as a pre-vocational instructor at Black Hills Workshop. He married his future partner in alleged crime — the former Lydia Kaiser of Sturgis — on Sept. 1, 1988 during a ceremony at Chapel in the Hills performed by the Reverend Ned Wick.
That’s according to a notice published by the Rapid City Journal on October 2 of that year.
At the time, Lydia had been employed at Fort Meade, a former Army post in Sturgis that by then was functioning as a Veterans Health Administration hospital.
John began his National Weather Service career as an intern in 1999, according to a story published that year in the Santa Fe New Mexican. A year later, Salmen accepted a job with the National Weather Service in Santa Teresa, Texas, according to the El Paso Times.
The Alleged Heist
On July 18, according to Las Vegas police, Lydia, 70, “jumped over the counter” of the cage at the Primm Valley Casino Resort, about 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, and made off with $625K in currency and $27K in casino chips. She lugged the booty back to her car during several trips. No employees were staffing the cage when the theft took place.
A day later, both she and her husband were charged with theft of more than $100K and attempted burglary of a business. Police said they discovered the couple’s identity because their Nissan hatchback, with its license plate, was videotaped by a police body cam during an unrelated police visit to the property on on June 25.
The couple is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center, with a court date on Aug. 20. If convicted, the couple could each face a prison sentence.
As of this writing, reps from the National Weather Service did not return an email seeking comment, and both John Salmen’s dedicated phone number and email at the organization were disconnected.
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