Mayor Paid to Support Hidden Deal for Wynn Casino License?
By Josh Resnek
No need to wonder why the mayor has been paying criminal attorneys $10,000 a month for quite some time.
New allegations filed by Sterling Suffolk Racecourse in Federal District Court in an ongoing lawsuit seeking to show the gaming license won by Wynn Resorts was stolen from them implicate Mayor Carlo DeMaria in receiving kickbacks as part of his participation in the land sale and the hidden deals with land developers that tainted the Wynn Casino application.
By fraud, kickbacks, political cronyism crossing the line of legality and other unlawful methods, the Defendants conspired to x the application process …,” the lawsuit states.
“The Defendants herein conspired to, and did in fact, circumvent the safeguards and protections that the Gaming Act was intended to provide,” the complaint continues to allege.
The suit, originally filed in September, seeks $3 billion in damages.
Across the board, no one involved in the lawsuit was willing to comment on it except for Steve Wynn’s attorney, Brian Kelly.
He said the attack was more nonsense from a disappointed competitor.
We will file a response soon,” he added, as reported in the Boston Herald.
However, fallout from the filing on Friday and the new allegations, has changed the narrative in this closely watched case.
Previously, the case had been about two felons as part of the purchase of the 36 acre polluted site here.
The new motion calls into question the obsessive and aggressive FBI and State Police investigation into nabbing the felons in an effort to put all questions to rest about the coming casino while overlooking or failing to grasp the reality that Wynn Resorts was not suitable under Massachusetts laws no matter who owned the land first.
Throughout the 66 page motion Sterling Suffolk led, the theme is about the license being purchased by Steve Wynn with a little help from his friends, former Gaming Commissioner Crosby, and the cavalcade of high powered attorneys, lobbyists and politicians past and present who Wynn heaped a mountain of money upon in his quest for the license.
This filing, more than any other to date, muddies the waters of the state’s effort to introduce casino gaming seamlessly into the culture here.
The filing reiterates its central belief that the qualified group at Sterling Suffolk was not just frowned upon, but disqualified by the Gaming Commission, while the sexual harassment team at Wynn Resorts was awarded the license after flawed investigations and overlooked harsh realities.
The motion alleges that Chairman Crosby was a longtime business partner and friend of one of the landowners, the businessman Paul Lohnes, and that Crosby owed Lohnes for his part in a business gone bad which Lohnes lent money to.
Crosby’s ling with the Ethics Commission, which came very late in the game and was Spartan in its commentary, is believed a red flag by the Sterling Suffolk team. The motion details intricately Crosby’s relationship with Lohnes and the strong connection between the two.
It also details that Steve Wynn spoke with Crosby before the license was awarded.
FBI tapes, affidavits and grand jury testimony apparently support those assertions.
The reverberations of the new charges have been felt inside the Gaming Commission among the commissioners past and present, and especially by former Gaming Commission Chair Crosby who resigned last September, and since has disappeared from the radar.
It is also believed to have given the newly seated Chair of the Commission Cathy Judd- Stein yet another reason to pour over the final investigation report into allegations of Steve Wynn’s sexual harassment charges, as well as the charges of the illegitimacy of the awarding process here.
Judd-Stein, appointed by Governor Charlie Baker, is touted as an ethics expert, a stern and honest lawyer who has served five governors. The Gaming Commission’s investigative report is locked away until legal efforts by Steve Wynn to stop it from being released are decided by a District Court in Las Vegas.
The motion ling caused a stir in Las Vegas, and in Macau.
The motion details Wynn’s meanderings with Triad members and other criminals who aided him in getting his license there.
Sterling Suffolk’s motion led Friday is the hot topic for discussion throughout the state’s tightly connected lobbying, legal, and political circles, with the June 23 opening date for the Encore Casino and Hotel still hanging in the balance.
For Mayor DeMaria, the strong allegations aimed at him and supported by documentation in the motion, and by those it claimed are willing to come forward, is not easily put aside.