Solution?
REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL!
Union: Casino vote tainted
Alleges election laws violated
Friday, February 14, 2014
By: Chris Cassidy
The Suffolk Downs workers union is calling for the state’s top political finance official to investigate alleged election law violations from the November casino ballot question in East Boston — warning the same clandestine operations are underway again just weeks before the Feb. 25 Revere referendum — according to a blockbuster complaint yesterday obtained by the Herald.
“These violations concealed massive, secret expenditures of monies by unknown sources in an illegal effort to defeat the ballot question and block a casino at Suffolk Downs,” wrote Alan Shapiro, the attorney for IBEW Local 123, in a letter to Office of Campaign and Political Finance Director Michael Sullivan. “Quickly identifying the unknown perpetrators of these violations is necessary to prevent them from repeating their secret expenditures and corrupting the casino referendum election scheduled to take place in Revere on Feb. 25.”
The complaint was first reported yesterday on boston herald.com.
The union cited two unsigned ads in a Revere newspaper this week urging a “No” vote on a Suffolk Downs/Mohegan Sun casino, and postcards and a “fake newspaper” delivered to every household in Eastie in November, but with no disclosure on costs of printing and delivery, the complaint claimed.
On this week’s Revere ads, the complaint alleges Charles Lightbody “has purchased these illegal ads without disclosing ... he is responsible for them.”
The complaint also claims Lightbody used money from a Wynn Resorts land deal in Everett to try to defeat the November Suffolk Downs referendum.
Lightbody was charged with allegedly slugging a Suffolk Downs labor boss at a rally in Revere last year.
Lightbody’s attorney, Tim Flaherty, told the Herald: “I haven’t seen the complaint, but this is an ongoing pattern where Suffolk Downs seems to try and blame other people for their failures ... They have bigger fish to fry than to make these types of spurious allegations.”
OCPF spokesman Jason Tait said a quick investigation is unlikely. “It’s not our policy to resolve cases prior to an election,” he said.
No Eastie Casino leader Celeste Myers denied her group’s involvement.
Spokesmen for both Wynn Resorts and Suffolk Downs declined comment.
http://bostonherald.com/business/business_markets/2014/02/union_casino_vote_tainted
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