Martha Coakley: We’re watching

Martha Coakley: We’re watching
Attorney general warns prospective operators
By Chris Cassidy

Hawkeyed Attorney General Martha Coakley has a stern warning for casino operators planning to bring the multibillion-dollar industry and its troubling track record of corruption, crime and legal hijinks to the Bay State: We’re watching you.

“If you’re looking to do business in Massachusetts, you better be prepared,” Coakley told the Herald in an exclusive interview yesterday. “We intend to ... make sure everyone plays by the rules and the rules are tough enough to make sure we do this successfully. Otherwise, it won’t work in Massachusetts.”

The Herald yesterday detailed the corruption, fraud and damaging political scandals that have plagued other states with casinos. The long rap sheet even included casino developers hoping to do business in the Bay State.

Among the findings of the Herald report: A scathing grand jury report in May slammed Pennsylvania’s new gaming board as a secretive patronage haven that’s failed to properly screen casino investors; two casino investors in Iowa were charged last year with making illegal campaign donations to the state’s former governor to influence a gambling license; and a federal probe launched last summer into a $1 million consulting contract between a casino and a company owned by a Florida congressman’s mother.

“It’s extremely important that we send the message to the industry, from Massachusetts, that we intend to do this right,” Coakley said. “That we’ll be monitoring it, hold accountable those who violate the law, and if I feel we don’t have the tools we need, I’ll be the first to ask the Legislature for the tools to do this right.”

Asked whether the corruption and fraud seen elsewhere are a foregone conclusion in a state where three successive speakers have been convicted of felonies, Coakley said: “I’d like to think it’s not inevitable, but I think it’s potentially inherent in the nature of the industry.”

By statute, Coakley must appoint someone with a strong law-enforcement background to the five-member Massachusetts Gaming Commission. She also plans to staff a new gaming enforcement division with state police and civilian investigators smart enough to keep up with the ever-evolving sophistication of white-collar crime.

Campaign finance and conflict-of-interest violations are also a concern, she added.

“We’ve really stressed the need for transparency and disclosure,” Coakley said. “If we don’t have that, we will have the problems seen coming out of Pennsylvania, Iowa and the other states outlined in the Herald (yesterday).”

Coakley said she’s had long talks with the attorneys general in Nevada — the nation’s casino capital — and New Jersey, as well as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who as attorney general launched a probe into that state’s scandal-ridden gambling industry.

“We need to learn from each of these states what has worked and what hasn’t,” Coakley said.

Asked whether casinos will go any more smoothly than the grotesquely mismanaged Big Dig, Coakley said Massachusetts has learned its lessons and they’re fresh in regulators’ minds.

“We saw a phenomenal lack of oversight and appropriate management,” she said of the public works fiasco. “We’re not going to make that mistake with this.”