Poarch Creek tribe will cover the cost for all 23 funerals of Alabama tornado victims. A $25,000 gift from the band’s Wind Creek Casino to help rebuild the heavily damaged First Baptist. A 41-year-old Newark woman is facing charges after stealing a $100 bill from a woman in a motorized wheelchair on Friday evening at the Wind Creek Bethlehem casino, Pennsylvania State Police say. Windcreek casino Wetumka. Stadium, Arena & Sports Venue. Jonathan Shen pictured with his younger sister, Hope Shen. Jonathan, a 31-year-old table games supervisor at Wind Creek Bethlehem, died Wednesday morning after a four-week battle with COVID-19. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which through its gaming subsidiary Wind Creek Hospitality owns and operates gaming venues in Alabama, Florida, Nevada, Aruba, Curacao, and soon Pennsylvania, has.
Usually St. Luke’s would call around midday or later with updates on her brother’s condition. But Wednesday, the call came to Hope Shen’s phone early in the morning. She had a feeling it wasn’t good news before she picked up.
Older brother Jonathan Shen died at about 9:30 a.m. following a four-week battle with COVID-19 that took its toll on his heart. Shen was a 31-year-old Bethlehem resident who worked at Wind Creek Bethlehem.
“I would do anything to bring him back,' Hope Shen, 26, said Wednesday night. “He didn’t deserve this. Nobody does.
'We love him so much, and we’re going to think about him every day.”
The last time Hope had spoken to her brother was March 26, the day he was intubated at the Anderson campus in Bethlehem Township because his breathing wasn’t improving. Hope, active duty and stationed at Reynolds Army Health Clinic in Oklahoma, had recently traveled home to Bethlehem to be with her mother, but had to return about the time her brother had a tracheal tube put in. The family was optimistic, hopeful he would take small steps toward recovery.
“I can’t imagine anything more painful than to lose my brother to something that is so preventable,” Hope said in a video posted Wednesday to her brother’s YouTube channel. 'And I know everyone wants to get back to work, but the absolute amount of pain and suffering that we went through over the last four weeks was so hard.”
“Jonny, I love you and I’m really sorry. I wish I could have been there for you.'
As of Wednesday, the state Health Department had reported 3,965 coronavirus cases, including 93 deaths, in Lehigh and Northampton counties.
Hope said her brother was her protector. He was the one who taught her about video games and teamwork. His nerdiness led to her love of art and anime.
The siblings grew up near Atlantic City, New Jersey, where their mother, Chaoli Shu, worked at a casino. When she was laid off, their mother got a job at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which was renamed Wind Creek Bethlehem last year.
She still works at the casino, which has been closed since March 15 and is where Jonathan was a table games supervisor. Hope said her mother also tested positive for COVID-19 but recovered, now just filled with grief.
Hope has plenty of memories of her brother, who she last saw in person in June when she left for basic training. The ones that rush into focus immediately are the silly ones, she admits.
When the family first moved into their new house in Bethlehem, Jonathan got stuck with the air mattress. He woke up the next morning on the floor, after the mattress deflated. Despite the family’s efforts to reinflate it, he was on the floor the following morning, too, which Hope said accelerated their mattress shopping timeline.
She also remembers him as competitive with any games the family would play. But, he recognized his sister was a sore loser, so he let her win from time to time.
Hope can still picture him in certain instances, too. For one, whenever she would buy food and bring it home, Jonny would appear in her room, wondering: “Are you going to finish that?”
He would pay it back on other occasions, always buying food for Hope and her mother if they had a bad day.
Aside from being maybe a little chubby, she said, Jonathan was healthy and was almost never sick, which makes his death even more difficult for her to fathom.
His coworkers and friends quickly commented on Facebook throughout the day Wednesday, remembering him as “one of the good guys” and “such a beautiful young man.”
Jon Jaeger, a dual rate supervisor at the casino, organized a GoFundMe fundraiser Wednesday to help cover expenses for the family. By 2 a.m. Thursday, the fundraiser had raised more than $19,000 from north of 500 people.
“Jon was a great man and he was a sweet, kind-hearted person,” Jaeger wrote.
Many of the comments on the fundraising campaign recalled his YouTube channel, “Vappyvap88,” which has almost 17,000 subscribers.
Hope said her brother used to play a lot of video games and was part of Vinesauce, a community that streams video games and entertainment. One commenter said he’ll be remembered as a “good and funny person,” with some saying his videos helped introduce them to Vinesauce.
In the video she posted to his account Wednesday, Hope Shen detailed her brother’s battle with COVID-19 and thanked his subscribers for treating him like family.
She said she’s been overwhelmed with the messages and support her family has received since his death.
On Thursday, she’ll be in her apartment in Oklahoma, going through things and hoping to make it home this weekend to help plan what a funeral may look like during the pandemic that took her brother away.
Morning Call reporter Jon Harris can be reached at 610-820-6779 or at jon.harris@mcall.com.
Wind Creek Casino Funerals Cripple Creek
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A 41-year-old Newark woman is facing charges after stealing a $100 bill from a woman in a motorized wheelchair on Friday evening at the Wind Creek Bethlehem casino, Pennsylvania State Police say.
As the victim was getting change for the bill just after 6 p.m., Meghan Amiria Scott asked her for some money, police said in court papers. The victim refused and Scott walked up behind her, grabbed the bill and ran off, police said.
When security confronted her, Scott dumped the money in the trash, police said.
The incident was caught on video and a trooper quickly decided to charge Scott with robbery, court papers say. The money was returned to the victim, police said.
The trooper then went through Scott’s purse and found a packet of heroin in a plastic bag with 32 Swedish Fish style candies laced with suspected THC, one clear vial with an orange cap and containing suspected crack cocaine, six clear vials with black lids and containing suspected crack, four pink vials containing suspected crack, three plastic bags containing suspected marijuana and 16 glassine bags labeled “WAP” and containing suspected heroin, police said.
Wind Creek Casino Entertainment
The drugs were packaged as if for sale, police said.
In addition to the robbery charge, Scott faces 59 counts of possession with intent to deliver drugs, one count of possession of a small amount of marijuana and 30 counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, records show.
She was arraigned before District Judge Daniel Corpora and housed in Northampton County Prison in lieu of $35,000 bail, records show. She remained jailed on Monday afternoon.
Her preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. Dec. 18 before District Judge Nicholas Englesson, records show.
Court papers do not list an attorney for Scott.
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Tony Rhodin can be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.