Minnesota court upholds Chippewa tribal ruling against gaming company

Minnesota court upholds Chippewa tribal ruling against gaming company
By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Minnesota court has recognized a Chippewa Indian tribal court judgment of more than $19 million against Gaming World International of Lawrence County and its owner, Angelo Medure, paving the way for tribal lawyers to pursue Mr. Medure's assets in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

The order was signed last week by a judge in Becker County, Minn., although Mr. Medure's lawyers are still waiting for the outcome of their appeal of the tribal court ruling.

Last year the Indian court said that Mr. Medure, 82, owner of Medure Development in Ellwood City, conspired with three leaders of the White Earth Band of Chippewa to steal $10 million in profits from the tribe's Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen, Minn., which Gaming World had been contracted to manage.

The Indian leaders were prosecuted by federal authorities.

Mr. Medure was not charged, but the White Earth Band sued him after removing Gaming World from the project in 1996.

The suit has been wending its way through the legal system ever since.

In its ruling, the tribal court determined that Gaming World never had any employees at Shooting Star yet was paid $10 million that should have gone to the tribe, whose only source of income is the casino. The $19 million judgment represents the $10 million plus accumulated interest since 1996.

Getting a state court to recognize the Indian court's decision was a major step toward recovering that money, according to Zenas Baer, a lawyer representing White Earth.

Mr. Baer said he next will file motions to determine Mr. Medure's assets. He lives in Coral Gables, Fla., and owns farmland in Ohio and various commercial entities in the New Castle area, including paving and construction firms.

Robert Manly, Mr. Medure's lawyer in Minnesota, said by e-mail that he couldn't comment until conferring with Mr. Medure's lawyers in Pennsylvania but wrote that "we are confident that the trial court's judgment will be reversed." Arguments before the White Earth Tribal Court of Appeals were held Dec. 2.

The 15-year court battle has its origins in a long-standing fight over the development of the casino and allegations that La Cosa Nostra families, including the Pittsburgh mob, had control of Indian casinos across the nation.

In addition to the federal case that led to the convictions of the tribal leaders, Gaming World's involvement with the casino was the subject of several lawsuits Mr. Medure brought against two newspapers and a magazine that implied he was connected to the Genovese crime family in Pittsburgh.

The news stories began in 1993 with a U.S. News & World Report investigative piece on Mafia infiltration of Indian casinos in the U.S. and Canada. The story said Mr. Medure was under investigation by the FBI.

He sued and won an undisclosed settlement in 1997.

He also sued the Youngstown Vindicator for defamation, but a federal judge in Pittsburgh dismissed the suit on the grounds that Mr. Medure is a public figure and the paper did not act with malice.

Another suit against the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat and the New York Times Co. also was dismissed by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.