The day they met, however, the two had something in common. Stephens eagerly wanted to bring Rosemont a casino, with its promise of vast lucre for village coffers and his own conveniently placed associates. Kevin Flynn was in the casino business; he ran a Michigan City, Indiana, riverboat and his father owned an outfit named HP Inc., a company anxious to move its shuttered gambling operation from East Dubuque, Illinois, to a more promising location.

Despite their mutual interests, the meeting turned into a disaster. By Stephens's account, Kevin Flynn was little more than a cocky, gabby rich kid. "Kevin proceeded to tell me how he was going to save Rosemont and the whole world," Stephens recalled later in a deposition he gave in a federal lawsuit. "I gave him a very short time. I said goodbye and I told [the friend who had set up the meeting], 'Don't ever send that idiot in here again.'"

Yet, this incongruous pair ended up becoming cohorts in one of the grandest deals the state had ever seen, the proposed Emerald Casino in Rosemont. For a time, the arrangement looked like a triumph of clout–pure Illinois politics in all its glory and horror. The state legislature rewrote the Riverboat Gambling Act so Donald Flynn and his partners could move their East Dubuque casino license to Rosemont. The new operation was backed by an all-star assemblage of money and influence, from Amalgamated Bank's chairman Eugene Heytow to Chicago Bears icon Walter Payton. Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley gave the project his blessing, and Governor George Ryan signed the bill that made it happen; friends of both were among the investors.

And why not? The Emerald and its political caretakers were sitting on a gold mine. A Rosemont casino was expected to generate $400 million a year. Even at $750,000 for half a share, it wouldn't take long for investors to earn back their money and then some.

Stephens would get his payoff, too. Rosemont was anticipating an estimated $6.4 million a year in taxes for the first ten years and, because the village owned the land on which the casino would be built, at least $1.5 million in annual rent. In addition, the Emerald would be required to pay at least $4 million a year to a new tourism and economic development commission controlled by Stephens.

The deal looked so thoroughly wired shut that Emerald officials broke ground in October 1999 on a patch of land about a block west of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, just inside the Interstate 294 beltway.

Then something remarkable happened. The Illinois Gaming Board, hitherto known as a revolving door for lobbyists, lawyers, and political hacks, said no. Officially, the Emerald was rejected because the board concluded the Flynns, and Kevin in particular, had engaged in a string of lies and evasions about, among other matters, how the Rosemont deal had come together. The board also blamed the Flynns for having failed to screen two investors and a construction subcontractor with alleged Mob ties. But (suspected) lies and (alleged) Mob ties are rarely enough to kill deals in Illinois. What kills deals is the same force that creates them: politics.

A casino may yet open in Rosemont. But today the Emerald is caught in a rat's nest of litigation and recriminations. The story of–the rise and collapse of what was a sure thing offers an instructivesome would say dismaying–case study of how public projects are put together in this state. The players included many of the usual suspects and at least one surprise, Marvin Davis, the oil tycoon and entertainment mogul from Los Angeles. As usual, the big bucks were steered toward the well-off and well connected, and the bigwigs all wanted it to happen. What makes this case study remarkable is the anomalous fact that–for one day, at least–clout struck out.

Governor Jim Thompson, using a blackjack table as a desk, signed a riverboat-gambling bill into law in February 1990 at the Peoria Boatworks Complex, home to a maritime museum, restaurant, and paddlewheel excursion boat. In the background, a calliope blared "Happy Days Are Here Again." The state would award ten licenses, and virtually every ownership group that applied was stocked with the finest clout Illinois had to offer.

The first license, for example, went to the Alton Riverboat Gambling Partnership, whose politically connected investors included William Cellini, the downstate asphalt king and Republican fundraiser extraordinaire. (Cellini is now vying for a piece of the Joliet Empress.) The second license went to Rock Island Boatworks, owned by hotelier D. James Jumer, and stocked with friends of Thompson. The third license went to the Jo Daviess Riverboat Corporation, the first incarnation of the group that would pilot the Emerald, the cloutiest casino of all.

The Jo Daviess Riverboat Corporation was the idea of Galena real estate agent Jim Cox, the brother of former Democratic U.S. congressman John Cox. Jim Cox had sold a plot of land in the Galena Territory resort community to Jim Sheerin, a retired Hilton Hotels executive, former chairman of McCormick Place and past president of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau. Cox and Sheerin struck up a friendship, often spending Sundays together watching their beloved Chicago Bears on TV.

"A guy with half a brain could probably get a riverboat out here," Sheerin told Cox one Sunday afternoon.

"I know a guy with half a brain," Cox replied. "What would a guy do?"

Sheerin coached Cox as he secured an option on a marina and an initial $3 million from investors. Then Sheerin hired a former Cook County Circuit Court judge, Louis Garippo, who had presided over the John Wayne Gacy trial, to represent the venture before the gaming board. (The board chairman, William Kunkle, had prosecuted Gacy.) In November 1990, the board awarded the Galena investors a license.

Although the boat would be docked 12 miles west of Galena, in East Dubuque, Illinois, it would be a nice complement to the nearby Eagle Ridge Inn & Resort and its two championship golf courses, the ski runs of Chestnut Mountain, and Galena's historical amenities. Sheerin persuaded Heytow, of the clout-heavy Amalgamated Bank & Trust, where William Daley, brother of the mayor, was once president, and Peer Pedersen, a powerful Chicago lawyer and a director of Waste Management, to invest in both Eagle Ridge and the riverboat. Heytow and Pedersen formed HP Inc. (the forebear of Emerald Casino Inc.) and rounded out the 18-person investor list with associates from Heytow's bank and former executives of his McCormick Inn, which had been demolished so McCormick Place could expand. Leonard Ring, an influential fundraiser for Richard M. Daley, also came on board.

The importation of Chicago investors prompted local speculation that the East Dubuque boat, named the Silver Eagle, was just a trial run for a Chicago boat. That speculation intensified when Mayor Daley proposed a $2-billion downtown theme park with at least four casinos just three months before the Silver Eagle opened its doors in 1992.

Chicago would have been tantalizing under any conditions. For HP, it was more so because the Silver Eagle was in trouble from the start. East Dubuque was a small market that included an Iowa riverboat competitor and a greyhound park. The faltering Silver Eagle was using only half of the 1,200 gaming positions (chairs at blackjack tables, spaces around a craps game, the number of slot machines, and so forth) allotted by its license. It wasn't long before Sheerin suggested HP use the balance of its positions in Chicago, or each of the existing licensees have a stake in a Chicago boat.

But Daley's casino proposal died in the legislature, and the failing Silver Eagle was shut down. HP would have to look elsewhere. In 1995, a Silver Eagle executive publicly called Rosemont the most appealing site in the state and begged for permission to transfer its gaming license there, but Attorney General Jim Ryan issued an opinion the license couldn't be transferred.

Don Stephens never liked the original riverboat legislation. He thought casinos should be based near convention centers, like the one in Rosemont bearing his name, not in depressed river towns. Milk the out-of-towners, not the down-and-out.

So a steady stream of casino executives eager to locate in Rosemont beat a path to the agreeable mayor's door, even though the state's ten licenses were already being used and the law didn't allow any of the riverboats to move off a navigable waterway. Under the right circumstances, these executives ventured, the law could be changed. In 1995, California oil billionaire Marvin Davis, who wanted to enter the casino business, decided Chicago held promise as a lucrative market. At the same time, Stephens was interviewing casino executives; a village consultant arranged a meeting with Michael Colleran, a Davis lawyer. The Rosemont mayor says he had no idea at first who Davis was. In a deposition for a lawsuit that later arose, Stephens described that first meeting with Colleran: "I can recall he sat there and told me how rich his boss was. . . . He's talking about this guy Marvin Davis, he could write a check for this, he could write a check for that, he could buy the whole city of Chicago. . . . I don't know what he was trying to impress me with."

Nevertheless, over the next few years, the Davis Companies commissioned architects and planners to develop blueprints for a Rosemont casino/entertainment complex, paid for an economic impact study, and even hired an engineering firm to do a traffic study.

Meanwhile, Davis schmoozed Stephens, once even sending a private plane to fetch him and his wife to California for dinner at Davis's home. "I don't think Marvin Davis ever mentioned a casino," Stephens recalled in his deposition. "He mentioned Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier. He had a whole bunch of Renoirs and he wouldn't let the Frogs look at them . . . the ambassador wanted to borrow his Renoirs and he wasn't going to give them to the Frogs. And we had a problem with Barbra Streisand with the show in the Horizon [now the Allstate Arena]. He said, 'Well, well, she's a friend of my wife, Barbara, but she's an F'ing bitch.' I said, 'Okay.'"

Unfortunately for Stephens, he could never persuade the legislature or then Governor Jim Edgar to allow gambling in Cook County. Stephens put Davis's plans into a drawer. But he didn't forget about them.

Donald Flynn, the son of a South Side Catholic school principal, has always had a knack for numbers. From 1972 to 1997, as treasurer, chief financial officer, executive vice-president, and board director, he was the financial smarts behind Oak Brook-based Waste Management, once the world's largest trash hauler. When Wayne Huizenga, a cofounder of Waste Management, left the company to form the video-rental pioneer Blockbuster Entertainment, Flynn was at his side. Flynn got very rich; in 1994, Chicago magazine estimated his net worth at nearly $500 million.

Although Flynn was one of the original investors in HP, urged on by Waste Management's Pedersen, a close friend, he was a relatively small player with a 7-percent stake. But when HP was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1996, Flynn stepped in with a $1.5-million personal loan that saved–and gave him control of–the company. A slimmed-down Silver Eagle reopened, with mostly slots and video poker, while HP continued its furious lobbying to get permission to move her. It also opened a riverboat in Michigan City, Indiana, called the Blue Chip Casino. Flynn's son Kevin was put in charge. "All I knew about gaming was losing money playing blackjack," Kevin recalls. "It was just a very unique opportunity. I thought it would be a fairly profitable business. The industry held no particular allure." The plan was to make the Blue Chip profitable enough to make up for the Silver Eagle's losses.

The Silver Eagle, however, could not be saved. In late June 1997, the gaming board–the state agency that regulates casinos–voted to revoke HP's license, ruling the company failed to show it could make the Silver Eagle profitable and failed to stay in compliance with a host of regulations. HP officials shuttered the boat for good in July and, angry that they hadn't been allowed to move from East Dubuque, made it clear they would tie up the license in the cumbersome, time-consuming appeals process. "We can't just smile and walk away," Donald Flynn told the board. "We don't want a fight, but we don't feel like we've been treated fairly."

Don Stephens may have been put off by Davis's pretensions and Flynn's brash ham-handedness, but the Rosemont mayor had a vision. He wanted not only a casino, but an entire entertainment complex, including a museum for antique automobiles, his passion. Davis had the experience to make a project like that a success; the Flynns controlled the one Illinois gaming license that was in flux. Stephens brought Davis, the Flynns, and other interested parties together, although it wasn't easy convincing the camps they needed one another. When Davis's lawyer Michael Colleran met HP's vice-president Joe McQuaid for the first time, in November 1998, the meeting was a bust. McQuaid, according to a lawsuit later filed by Davis, saw no reason to give Davis a piece of the action.

The next morning, Colleran was about to board a plane back to Los Angeles when he received an urgent phone call. Stephens wanted him to meet with McQuaid again. This time, Stephens would be there. They met in the coffee shop at the Rosemont Hyatt, where Stephens holds court and, according to the Davis lawsuit, McQuaid was persuaded that Davis's financial muscle (Forbes ranked him 82nd in its 2001 world's richest list) and entertainment industry expertise (he once owned 20th Century-Fox) could help HP get what it wanted.

Meanwhile, a friend of Stephens and a noted dealmaker, secretary of state George Ryan, was getting ready to move into the Governor's Mansion in Springfield. Campaign funds controlled by Stephens had given Ryan more than $45,000 that election year. The Silver Eagle's owners also greased the skids. In the campaign cycle leading up to the 1998 election, HP gave more than $87,000 to Ryan, House minority leader Lee Daniels, and Senate president James "Pate" Philip–the state's top three Republicans.

Even so, during the 1998 campaign, Ryan said he opposed opening Cook County to gambling. Stephens pushed to make a deal anyway, moving to woo Arlington Park impresario Richard Duchossois, who opposed a Rosemont casino because it would compete with his track. Duchossois had the clout in Springfield to block a Cook County gambling bill, so HP would need him on its side.

A deal was sealed at a chance meeting on East Pearson Street on December 1, 1998, according to the depositions given by Duchossois and Colleran, Davis's lawyer. On that day, Duchossois was supposed to meet Kevin Flynn for dinner at Bistro 110. Flynn didn't show, so after dinner Duchossois left to attend a reception for Edgar at The Ritz-Carlton. On the way there, Duchossois ran into Flynn, who said he had just met with Colleran in The Ritz-Carlton's lobby bar. A deal had been worked out for the ownership of a casino in Rosemont–given, of course, approval by the legislature. The Flynns and Davis would each get 37.5 percent, and Duchossois would get 20 percent. (The alleged deal allowed 5 percent for "local investors," probably politicians' friends.) According to his lawsuit, Davis would be slated to contribute $12 million toward the $30 million that would buy out HP's original investors. The deal, according to notes written by a Duchossois lawyer who was also there, was sealed with a handshake.

In the spring 1999 session, Representative Ralph Capparelli, a Democrat from the Far Northwest Side who does Stephens's bidding in the legislature, introduced a bill amending the Riverboat Gambling Act so it would allow a gaming license holder that had not been doing business on January 1, 1998, to relocate to any willing community. That meant letting HP move to Rosemont. Stephens stalked the Capitol halls in his Hawaiian shirt and sat behind an oval table in Capparelli's office twisting arms and trading favors. Much to Stephens's relief, Kevin Flynn let McQuaid do HP's heavy lifting. "I did see Kevin Flynn in Springfield," Stephens said in his deposition. "I said to Joe McQuaid, 'Get him out of here,' because he came in to Capparelli's office and I didn't think that Kevin Flynn would add anything to the mix."

Says Flynn: "I was there once or twice as a spectator."

The bill turned into a huge, expensive grab bag of goodies that bought off the most dangerous opposition. Rosemont's suburban neighbors, who might have feared crime and congestion would spill into their communities, got a share of the tax revenues the casino would generate. The horseracing industry got a subsidy to offset new competition for the gambling dollar. Cook County got a criminal justice fund created by gambling revenues. The University of Illinois got $4 million to repair its football field. The legislation allowed boats to stay docked, eliminating the farcical requirement that they cruise–a change that thrilled other riverboat owners. Stephens promised a group of legislators he would find an additional five votes for their gay rights bill. And Stephens told pols who feared a pro-gambling vote would hurt their next campaign that he would lend his formidable political operation to help them. The horse-trading was so intense Senator Denny Jacobs of Moline, known as the father of riverboat gambling in Illinois, told the Springfield State Journal-Register he felt like a whore.

Still, the bill was touch-and-go. Stephens recalled in his deposition that ten minutes before a vote in the House was called, Speaker Michael Madigan went to Capparelli's office to find Stephens and said, "'Don, I suggest you pull the bill. The best we can do is 56 votes. It can't pass. Pull it and you'll have another shot at it.'

"'And I said, 'Michael, I've been doing this for ten years. Either it's up or down. Call the bill. I'm going down.'

"He called the bill and, lo and behold . . . we got the 60-some votes."

That put Senate president Pate Philip on the spot. "I had talked to Pate Philip and Pate very cavalierly said, 'Get it out of the House and I'll get it through the Senate,'" Stephens recalled. "I believe in my heart of hearts Pate never thought we would get it out of the House. . . . [M]y true belief is he thought we'd never pass it anyway. He adjourned the Senate and went home."

Philip brought the Senate back and Stephens got his 30 votes in a roll call. But Senate minority leader Emil Jones Jr., a South Side Chicago Democrat, pulled one last maneuver on behalf of the black caucus, which bargained for increased state aid to poor communities. "We thought we had it passed," Stephens said. "And Emil Jones outsnookered Pate Philip. He somehow conned this downstate senator off the floor and then asked for a verification of the roll call. . . . The verification came up one vote short. . . . [W]e went back the next day and worked our butts off trying to make peace with the black caucus and that's when we got the bill passed."

Stephens emerged from Capparelli's office triumphant. Emil Jones later told Stephens, "I really wasn't opposed to the bill," according to Stephens's deposition. "I had to get what I wanted. . . . From now on maybe we can be friends."

With the legislature won over and virtually every powerful interest in the state behind the bill, Ryan wasn't about to stand in the way. He signed the bill in June 1999. But by that time, a rift had already developed between the business partners. A high-level Emerald insider says now once the legislation passed, Kevin Flynn's manner began to cause problems. "Kevin adopted kind of an arrogant 'I've-got-the-world-in-my-hands, I-can-do-anything' kind of attitude," the source says. To make matters worse, the source says, "[Kevin] was way, way over his head." Davis later claimed in a lawsuit around this time the Flynns stopped returning his phone calls. Stephens helped arrange a phone call to make amends, but it didn't go well. "Instead of Don Flynn calling back, Kevin Flynn called and hung up on Marvin and that made Marvin angry," Stephens said in a deposition.

Davis worried the Flynns were cutting him out of the purported deal–which had never been put in writing. Stephens suggested Davis buy out some of the original shareholders himself. None wanted to sell. HP was now looking like a dazzling investment. Renamed Emerald Casino Inc., it applied to the gaming board for renewal of its license, asserting under the new legislation, it was entitled to move to Rosemont.

In October 1999, Marvin Davis sued for $250 million or enforcement of the supposed lobby bar agreement. In a deposition, Kevin Flynn acknowledged discussions had taken place, but denied there was a deal. Emerald's lawyers argued Davis's suit was folly–surely a sophisticated businessman like Davis wouldn't make such a lucrative agreement on a handshake. Davis's lawyers retorted Flynn insisted nothing be put in writing until after the legislation passed because the deal wouldn't look good politically, given Davis is an out-of-state billionaire and Duchossois had worked both ends to get a taxpayer subsidy for horseracing at the same time he was given a piece of the competition.

The nifty casino alliance, built on hope and greed, started to crumble. Today, Kevin Flynn calls Davis's lawsuit and allegations absurd. But, Stephens says, "knowing Kevin Flynn, I'm not saying he didn't [make the deal], because he's an idiot. He'd say anything, especially if he thought he was talking to a billionaire." Duchossois, who would not comment for this story, essentially backs Davis's version of events in a deposition. "I believe there was a breach of trust, breach of confidence, a breach of contract or breach of a gentleman's agreement," he said. Still, Duchossois did not join Davis's suit, perhaps to avoid publicizing his role in the debacle, perhaps to keep his options open should either side prevail and build in Rosemont. In any case, U.S. District Court judge Ronald Guzmán threw the suit out of federal court, ruling it should be heard in state court. (Davis's appeal is still pending.)

And the damage had already been done.

Emerald officials were so sure they had a done deal they began building their casino in October 1999. Robert Vickrey, then chairman of the gaming board, says he was just days away from putting the Emerald on the agenda, and even scheduled a site visit, although he was forced to cancel. It seemed certain the chips would be flying in Rosemont in just a matter of time. The language of the legislation seemed to make the gaming board into little more than a bureaucratic prop. The board "shall grant the application and approval" once the licensee obtained permission from the new municipality, the law said. What could be clearer than that? The Emerald might indeed have sailed right through had the gaming board not been stalled by a lawsuit filed by a group of Lake County investors. Jilted in their bid to put a boat on the Fox River, they challenged the constitutionality of the new gaming legislation, arguing it was illegally designed to benefit just one party–HP/Emerald. A Cook County judge eventually dismissed the case, ruling the Lake County group did not have standing to sue, but in the meantime another judge ordered the gaming board to withhold a decision on the Emerald until the case was settled. Meanwhile, the gaming board was creating its own problems.

Like many government agencies, the five-member gaming board has always been cozy with the industry it regulates. The board's first chairman, William Kunkle, now represents several casinos before the board, including the Emerald. Emerald Casino Inc. senior vice-president Joseph McQuaid, a former Illinois State Police master sergeant, was an investigator for the original board. Former deputy counsel Donna More represents at least four riverboats and at least six licensed vendors before the board. The list continues.

There was no reason to think the board would be particularly tough on the Emerald, even though some board staffers were livid HP had been able to prolong its appeal of the license revocation until the law could be rewritten. But the staffers could just as well have been livid with the board itself–after Governor Ryan signed the new riverboat law, the board declared the earlier revocation moot, against the advice of chief counsel Mareilé Cusack.

While the Emerald matter was pending, Ryan appointed Gregory Jones to the board and named Sergio Acosta as administrator, the person who actually runs the board's daily business. Both were former federal prosecutors and both were recommended by Ryan's adviser Jeremy Margolis. At the time, Margolis was an attorney for the West Central Municipal Conference, a group representing the 71 suburbs that would share in the local tax revenues generated by the Emerald. In other words, Margolis's clients had a great financial interest in whether or not a gaming board would approve the Emerald. (Ryan and Margolis insist there was no conflict of interest.)

The other board members seemed likely to be compliant, too. Stuart Levine, a retired HMO executive and philanthropist, was a major campaign contributor to the Republican leadership in the General Assembly. Staci Yandle, a personal injury lawyer, was politically connected downstate. Joseph Lamendella, a tax lawyer, had once worked for a company with casino properties in Puerto Rico. And Robert Vickrey, who assumed the board chairmanship in the summer of 1999, just when the Emerald materialized, stated repeatedly the legislation left the board with no choice but to approve the Emerald.

But the board's compliance may have caused problems. In November 1999, while the Emerald was on hold, the board approved the purchase of the Joliet Empress by Las Vegas casino figure Jack Binion. In the months leading up to the vote, the board's staff had investigated Binion and uncovered a thick portfolio of alleged business improprieties, including contracts given to minorities who were really fronting for white-owned businesses. Their report came with a recommendation against approving Binion's purchase. Strangely, however, board chairman Vickrey had never asked for the staff's recommendation in pushing Binion through.

A few weeks later, the staff report on Binion was leaked to the Chicago Tribune. The subsequent story reinforced the notion the fix was in, and months later the board reversed its decision. Ryan's aides put out the word the governor would not stand for a board that coddled the industry. At the January meeting, Vickrey resigned–ostensibly to spend more time with his family and tend to his own business matters. (Ryan must have eventually cooled down; a year later he appointed Vickrey to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.) Vickrey says it is unfair to characterize his board as a rubber stamp but refuses to discuss the Binion episode.

In losing Vickrey, the Emerald lost its biggest cheerleader on the board. Gregory Jones ascended to the chairmanship, and Ryan appointed to the board Sterling Mac Ryder, formerly a lawyer for the gaming board and onetime director of the state Department of Children and Family Services. Like Vickrey, Ryder said he thought the board had no choice but to approve the Emerald.

But in June 2000, the gaming board's chief lawyer, Mareilé Cusack, issued a surprising legal opinion. While the conventional interpretation of the "shall" language of the statute was reasonable, she said, there is another reasonable interpretation: the word "shall" applies only to the casino's relocation. It is still up to the board whether or not to renew the license. The board, she concluded, retained its authority to deny a Rosemont casino. The board adopted Cusack's interpretation with only Ryder dissenting. Then Cusack resigned, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.

In time, the Emerald lost Ryder, too. In late November, Ryder said publicly he was leaning against the Emerald because of information being developed by the board's investigators. He told the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald rejecting the Emerald would also send a message casinos could not be greased through the legislature.

When the lawsuit brought by the would-be Fox River casino investors was dismissed, on January 25, 2001, it cleared the way for the gaming board to vote on the Emerald at its January meeting four days later. For the first day and a half, the board met in private, digesting and discussing a 100-page staff report. On the afternoon of January 30th, the board emerged to a packed fifth-floor auditorium in a state office building at 160 North LaSalle Street. The crowd included reporters, antigambling activists, and the Emerald group–executives, lawyers, and investors, including former Chicago Bear Shaun Gayle and Connie Payton, Walter's widow. Gayle and Payton were among the investors brought on board to satisfy the legislature's diversity mandate.

After disposing of routine business, and hearing public commentary, some of it against the Rosemont casino, Jones asked Acosta for the staff's recommendation on the Emerald. Acosta recommended rejecting it, explaining the staff believed "Donald and Kevin Flynn ha[d] repeatedly made false and misleading statements" and that "organized crime ha[d] attempted in this case to gain . . . a foothold." The board then voted (4-1) not only to reject the Emerald, but to revoke its license. "It was wonderful to see people who thought they had a sure thing get screwed," says the Rev. Tom Grey, an antigambling activist who is the industry's archnemesis in Illinois.

The board put its denial in writing in March, explaining the Flynns had misrepresented the way the Rosemont deal had come together, failed to inform the board of stock sales, started construction without board approval, and allowed investors with Mob ties into the deal. The board does not cite Stephens for any misconduct. In fact, in public statements in January when the board denied the Emerald the go-ahead, board members had practically canonized the Rosemont mayor. In private, things were different. In the closed session before January's public meeting, board members fiercely debated whether to raise questions about Stephens in the denial, according to board sources. A board majority decided against that because they concluded there was enough malfeasance by the Flynns to jettison the Emerald without needlessly taking on the Rosemont mayor.

The implications of the written denial, however, raise the question of whether the board will ever approve a casino in Rosemont as long as Stephens is mayor. For example, the board blames the Flynns for accepting an investment in the Emerald from Sherri Boscarino, the wife of Nick Boscarino, whom the board cited as an associate of mobster William Daddano Jr. But in his deposition, Stephens acknowledges he introduced Sherri Boscarino to McQuaid at a political fundraiser for George Ryan at Stephens's spread in Lake Delavan, Wisconsin. What's more, the Chicago Crime Commission charged Daddano is a business associate of Stephens. Until recently, Nick Boscarino was partners with Stephens's son Mark in a cleaning company called Bomark, which has contracts for the Rosemont convention center and the Allstate Arena.

Kevin Flynn insists the Rosemont mayor "never suggested any shareholder, never endorsed any shareholder, and said from the very beginning, 'I want nothing to do with this, because it's obviously going to be scrutinized.'" But the high-level Emerald source says Flynn tells a different story inside the company. "Kevin Flynn says he was told to put Boscarino in, presumably by Don Stephens," the source says. Putting Boscarino in the deal was tantamount to taunting the board, the source says. "If Boscarino had to be taken care of, there are better ways to take care of Boscarino. It was so in-your-face."

Stephens denies any Mob ties. "If Nick is a hood, I don't know it,² he says. "Show me something that's really Mob, and I'll resign."

The use of D&P Construction on the Emerald project was also a problem for the board. D&P is owned by the sister-in-law of John DiFronzo, whom the crime commission calls a Mafia operating director. The company is also a Stephens campaign contributor.

Kevin Flynn says Emerald executives never realized alleged organized crime connections were a board concern until 90 minutes before the meeting in which the casino was denied. "The notion that we had some fiduciary responsibility to investigate these people is ludicrous," Flynn says. "Absolutely ludicrous. [The gaming board has] intergovernmental relationships, they have access to the police computers; they can do all those things. We as a private company have never had the burden of doing investigations, nor do we have access to what they have."

The one board vote in favor of the Emerald at the January meeting came from tax lawyer and former Internal Revenue Service agent Joseph Lamendella, who strangely had not been reappointed or replaced even though his term had expired six months earlier. A former federal prosecutor, Lamendella thought the Emerald could save itself by replacing the Flynns with a pristine public gaming company. And he defended Stephens. "Rosemont, based upon what I have seen and heard, is not a bastion of organized crime," he said. "On the contrary, in my judgment, it's a model of municipal magnificence . . . the best and the most logical place for a casino anywhere in Illinois."

Then Lamendella resigned, saying he had lost his passion for the job.

"How did it happen? This is the land of the deal!" Reverend Grey says, laughing.

The Emerald crew are still wondering the same thing. Their best answer is the rules changed in midstream. The legislature intended to put a casino in Rosemont. The gaming board intended to let it happen. But the cumulative weight of the Davis allegations, the Binion embarrassment, the Vickrey resignation, and Cusack's board-empowering legal interpretation created a new playing field. Emerald would have to play it by the book.

The Emerald's leadership, however, never changed its approach, all along lambasting the board for its slow-footedness and–intentionally or not–engaging in a series of slights such as not filing paperwork the gaming board staff requested and failing to keep the board closely informed of construction contracts and changes among proposed shareholders. If it had been just one or two things that bothered the board–a single Mob-tied investor or an inconsistent explanation of events–a solution probably could have been found. Even board chairman Gregory Jones says it was "more the accumulation" of alleged problems that sank the Emerald, not any one thing in particular. Kevin Flynn says the Emerald is being held to a higher standard than casinos have been in the past, but Sheerin, the old Galena hand who worked with the gaming board to get the Silver Eagle off the ground, says, "I get a kick out of [the Emerald] guys. We couldn't turn a switch without getting board approval."

Emerald's executives seemed to believe throughout they were entitled to a casino. "[They] couldn't get over the notion that just because they want it they were gonna get it," says the Emerald source. Or, as HP president Kevin Larson said in 1998, "we believe that license is ours."

Of course, as Grey and others point out, the license was never theirs; it belongs to the state, and it is the license holder's privilege to get rich off it as long as the license holder meets the conditions laid down by the gaming board. Both gaming board and Emerald sources say Flynn and company lawyer Michael Ficaro took an aggressive–and alienating–tack instead of nurturing the board. The Emerald insider says some shareholders once beseeched Kevin Flynn to step back from a leading role because the board didn't like him. Flynn wasn't convinced. "'Kevin, they hate you!'" the shareholders told him, according to the source. "'Face it. You're not the guy to deal with it,'" they said. "[Kevin] just exploded: 'This can't be!'" the source says.

Clout doesn't die; it just finds another way. Three months after the Emerald was rejected, Representative Capparelli suggested enlarging the gaming board, and Representative Joel Brunsvold floated a plan to combine the state's gaming and racing boards. Both ideas were viewed by political insiders as ways to pack the gaming board to reverse the Emerald denial. Both plans died quickly.

As Chicago went to press, Ryan changed the board himself, replacing Ryder and Yandle with developer Elzie Higginbottom and former Dominick's CEO Robert Mariano. The new members, Ryan said in a statement, "will bring fresh perspectives grounded in their successful business careers."

The move wasn't a complete surprise. Last spring, Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael Sneed reported Ryder intended to leave the board. In fact, Ryder had already sent a letter to the governor asking to be reappointed. Ryder thinks the item was planted to send him the message he wasn't wanted, or to create an environment in which replacing him would not seem so controversial.

Meanwhile, Emerald Casino Inc. is working on three tracks. It is appealing its license revocation and the gaming board's January rejection through the board's administrative process. It has also filed suit against the board in Cook County court alleging the board violated the "shall" language of the riverboat legislation. Kevin Flynn now says he may accept a settlement in which a new ownership group comes in, and he and his father sell their interest–a welcome outcome, it seems, to some. In discussions with Governor Ryan, Stephens says, "the governor indicated that if the Flynns are the problem, why [not] just get the Flynns out."

Stephens, too, is still hard at work. In May he hired former federal prosecutor Dan Webb to represent the village before the board should the board reaward the revoked Emerald license somewhere other than Rosemont. As U.S. attorney, Webb indicted Stephens twice, once for allegedly lying on his taxes and another time for allegedly getting kickbacks in a land deal. Stephens beat the rap each time. Now Webb is a partner at Winston & Strawn, where former governor Jim Thompson is chairman. Thompson is a lobbyist for Duchossois, and sent a letter to the gaming board praising Stephens when it was weighing the Emerald's fate.

Stephens also must figure out what to do with the $40-million parking garage the village is building. Under the terms of its deal with Emerald, the casino company is supposed to reimburse the village for the cost of the garage. But without a license, Emerald is refusing to pay.

In May, Stephens had lunch in Rosemont with Grey. The minister was not won over; he gave the mayor a copy of the Methodist Church's social principles, which include an antigambling plank. Perhaps the final word, then, should be left to Grey, who–despite his principles–is happy to use a gambling expression to describe what happened to the bigwigs behind the Emerald: "They ultimately misplayed a sure hand."