By Douglas Holt
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 25, 2002

Illinois Gaming Board officials have rejected the latest buyout offer for the troubled Emerald casino project and are insisting that any deal preserve the board's option to site a new riverboat somewhere other than Rosemont, officials of the northwest suburb said Wednesday.

Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens assailed the board's stand as unlawful and unworkable, and said it would immediately hit a legal roadblock because the village has a contract with the Emerald to land a new casino.

"This is getting to the point of asininity," he said.

The Gaming Board denied Emerald Casino Inc. permission to open a casino in Rosemont and moved to revoke its license in January 2001, alleging top officers of the would-be casino company lied to state investigators and sold shares to two people with ties to organized crime.

An administrative hearing is scheduled next month in which Emerald will seek to overturn the action. As the hearing approaches, Emerald officials have stepped up efforts to reach a settlement that would allow the sale of the license. Las Vegas casino giant MGM-Mirage Inc. earlier this year offered to buy the license for $615 million, with $160 million earmarked for the state.

The board rejected that deal, but Emerald recently came back with a proposal to turn over as much as $350 million of the sale proceeds to the state in an attempt to overcome the objections of regulators, sources close to the negotiations told the Tribune.

That too, was turned down by board negotiators, with the primary sticking point appearing to be the casino's once-presumed location, Rosemont. The Gaming Board has not ruled Rosemont in or out, but is resisting any commitment to give the village a green light as part of a deal, sources said.

Stephens said it appeared to him as if Rosemont had been rejected without public debate or explanation.

"I'd like the board to tell me why," he said. "I'd love to debate them on it. What has Rosemont got to do with that gosh-darned casino?"

Gaming Board Administrator Philip C. Parenti and board Chairman Gregory Jones declined to comment, as did Emerald lawyers William Kunkle and C. Barry Montgomery.

The latest negotiations occurred Tuesday in the offices of Robert E. Shapiro and Richard Saldinger, lawyers hired by the board to handle the Emerald matter. Parenti was at the session, across from Kunkle and Montgomery for Emerald.

But Shapiro rejected the Emerald offer, saying, "You have not heard what I said," Stephens and sources said.

The only public discussion by the board about Rosemont was last year when it denied Emerald its license. The board at the time appeared to go out of its way to avoid criticism of Rosemont as a location, ignoring critics who argued the board should reject Rosemont as a casino location because of business relationships Stephens has had with alleged associates of organized crime.

Stephens is a former business partner of Nick S. Boscarino, one of the two casino investors the Gaming Board has identified as having mob ties. Boscarino was indicted in January in a scam involving Rosemont village insurance.

Stephens also wrote a federal judge pleading for a lenient sentence for longtime friend Anthony F. Daddino, who was convicted in a mob shakedown scheme. Upon Daddino's release, Stephens gave him a job in Rosemont as a building inspector.

Former board member Joseph Lamendella, who cast the sole vote in favor of the casino, asserted that Gaming Board staff members and other board members had concluded that Rosemont was a bad site for a casino.

"Rosemont," Lamendella said, "is not a bastion of organized crime. On the contrary ... it's a model of municipal magnificence."

Three other board members, including Jones, insisted the license denial had nothing to do with Rosemont, but was based only on the actions of top Emerald officials. "Geographically it's a terrific location for our casino, given its accessibility to O'Hare" Airport, Jones said at the time.

Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune