The seventh day of testimony in the Macon County Casino Civil Suit stretched on with Lucky Palace Investor Jess Ravich on the stand.

“But for the sheriff granting assurances, we had everything ready to go, [everyone] was on board,” explained Ravich.

Studies had been completed on the viability of the project by researching Macon County and the surrounding areas, Ravich had spoken with Bracy, visited the site and its nearest competition, and he figured that the venture would be successful. Ravich started working on finding investors and brought Paul Alanis in on the project to work as a developer and casino manager. Ravich said all that was needed was for the Sheriff to say that should the facility be built according to the regulations at the time of the assurance, that it could open as a casino and as intended.

“It’s naive to think that anyone would spend a significant amount of money only to hope that something would get done,” said Ravich.

Ravich also agreed with testimony given on Tuesday by Alanis that said VictoryLand might even be able to benefit from the opening of Lucky Palace due to the “cluster effect.”

Ravich explained that he only visited Alabama a few times; his primary source of information regarding progress with the Sheriff was Paul Bracy Jr., President of Lucky Palace LLC. – Bracy’s testimony was heavily called into question earlier in the trial.

He then went on to explain to the court in detail the work that was done to persuade Sheriff Warren to grant the charity licenses for Lucky Palace. Ravich recruited a local Alabama investor, a man by the name of Ed Rogers. Rogers did a number of things beyond loaning money which included visiting with the Attorney General at that time, Troy King, about the Sheriff. Rogers told Ravich that AG King supported Lucky Palace coming to Macon County under a Planet Hollywood umbrella. King also told Rogers that Sheriff Warren should have been able to issue a “build-out letter” as requested under the broad rules he was given.

Ravich explained that once Rogers got involved, work started to determine what specifically the Sheriff didn’t like about Lucky Palace and why he hadn’t been willing to give any assurances. Ravich said they considered using an all-Alabama management team instead of Silver Slipper like originally planned.

“We were just trying to find out what his hot button was and why he wasn’t responding to us,” said Ravich.

A large effort was put in to showing an Alabama involvement rather than using groups from other states.

Rogers said negotiations with Sheriff Warren had been going well in e-mail correspondence with Ravich. Rogers thought they would see some kind of approval by mid-December and if that didn’t work they would “explore other strategies.”

Those strategies broke down to two things – 1) opposing the Sheriff with a different candidate in the upcoming election and 2) bringing a lawsuit.

Rogers brought a third man in to help – former Alabama Lt. Governor Steve Windom. Windom was hired to work as a lobbyist and consultant for their “other strategies.”

E-mail correspondence was sent that stated, “nothing short of fear of losing, or actually losing an election will persuade [Sheriff Warren] to write the letter.”

Windom sought the help of Steve Raby to work on the campaign of their candidate – current Shorter Police Chief Sandor Maloy. Windom wrote in correspondence that it would be an “all out war on the Sheriff for the months of the campaign.”

Windom and Raby sought payment for their involvement – $20,000 a month in advance starting in January 2006. They also sought a ‘success bonus’ for either a successful election or for getting the sheriff to sign an agreement. Under this agreement, Windom would have gotten a $1 Million bonus. Windom’s suggested strategy of “creating fear” for Sheriff didn’t work. That’s when the charities banded together for the second strategy and a lawsuit was filed.

Read a case timeline HERE.

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -On the sixth day of testimony in the Macon County Casino civil trial, potential Lucky Palace Developers explained that they hoped to turn Macon County into a destination for gaming similar to Tunica, Mississippi.

Lucky Palace President Paul Bracy Jr. wrapped up his third day on the stand early Tuesday morning. Following Bracy on the stand was Silver Slipper CEO Paul Alanis. Silver Slipper was a company Lucky Palace had been interested in contracting with to assist in developing and managing the casino.

Alanis was intended to testify as to his experience in developing and building other casinos as well as his work with Bracy and investor Jess Ravich on the Lucky Palace project.

Alanis explained his past work with the development of some of his casino projects. Those projects include casinos in Tunica as well as various parts of the U.S. Alanis even did some work with Southern Star Casino in Lowndes County in his capacity as the CEO of Silver Slipper.

He testified that Jess Ravich, a Lucky Palace investor and a friend of his approached him about working with Paul Bracy Jr. on the Lucky Palace project. A contract was drafted for Silver Slipper to assist in the development and management of Lucky Palace. Alanis had experience with working with larger corporations and helped Bracy develop Lucky Palace as a Planet Hollywood Casino.

“I tried to move [the project] forward,” explained Alanis. “I thought I could help keep the budget reasonable and get it done quickly.”

Alanis said he viewed Macon County as a great opportunity and location to open a venture like Lucky Palace.

“I wasn’t interested in getting into a project that would be an uphill battle. Looking at how well other Alabama facilities were doing, I thought we could get involved,” testified Alanis.

He told the court he toured the nearby facilities including the Native American facilities and even VictoryLand itself. Alanis discussed with Ravich that the Macon County area, especially with its proximity to Atlanta, had a “high propensity” towards gaming. Alanis told the court he thought Lucky Palace, along with VictoryLand, could be part of a “cluster effect” that would draw large groups of people to a number of facilities. In this way there would be competition, but the facilities would also play off of each other. This would essentially turn Macon County into the electronic bingo “Tunica of Alabama.”

Alanis told the court that in his experience, a casino the size of Lucky Palace would take 15 months to build – three months to complete the site work and a year to ‘go vertical’ and construct the facility.

Alanis explained that this plan never happened. He testified that because of issues with cooperation from Macon County Sheriff David Warren, investors, including Ravich, were wary of releasing money to start work on the facility site without the guarantee of Class B bingo licenses for charities associated with Lucky Palace.

“You can’t get the financing [without the approval] and it would be foolhardy to give money without the approval,” explained Alanis. “You need to have the approvals to move forward and build and certainly to get the financing.”

Alanis understood that the lenders wanted to be certain that should they lend the money, the building would open as a casino and not as a bowling alley.

Alanis cited the process used in Mississippi to obtain a casino license.

“In most states you have a hearing,” he explained. “At the hearing you’re granted a permit. When you begin the process of construction, if you follow the conditions it’s understood that the actual license would be forthcoming after inspection.”

Alanis explained that he only read the first rules briefly – he was never made aware of any changes in those rules while he was working on the project.

Following Alanis on the stand was attorney Stan Gregory. Gregory works for the Bradley, Arant law firm out of Birmingham. Gregory was contacted on behalf of attorney Bobby Segall and his client Frank Thomas who was also looking at constructing an electronic bingo facility in Macon County.

Gregory testified that he drafted what was meant to be an additional amendment to the rules that Thomas and Bracy would have wanted to submit to Sheriff Warren. The language added included the ability to get a “build-out letter” as a pre-qualification to approving Class B bingo licenses. Gregory added that it was perfectly common for other parties to draft rules and regulations for consideration. His testimony was brought in to demonstrate that Lucky Palace was working to alter the rules for its own specific venture. Bracy told the court last week that he had no knowledge of the involvement of Thomas or Segall.

Lucky Palace investor Jess Ravich finished the day on the witness stand detailing his involvement in the project. During opening statements, McGregor’s attorneys described Ravich as “the guy behind this litigation.” Ravich’s testimony will stretch into Wednesday.

http://www.wsfa.com/story/18429121/developers-hoped-to-make-macon-county-a-major-gaming-destination

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -The fifth day of testimony in the Macon County casino civil trial ended with Lucky Palace President Paul Bracy Jr. still on the stand.

Attorneys took Bracy through an exhaustive analysis of his tax troubles – Bracy says he’s working to pay off his back taxes to both the federal and state governments and says his former accountants share a large amount of the blame for misevaluating the worth of past projects. In all, Bracy owes approximately $4.5 Million in back taxes. Bracy was even unaware of a tax lien against Lucky Palace itself. On the stand last week, Macon County Sheriff David Warren told the court that had he known of Bracy’s tax issues, he wouldn’t have granted licenses to charities wishing to operate bingo through Lucky Palace.

Bracy detailed what he called a complicated relationship with Sheriff Warren. Bracy attached a heavy part of the blame to Sheriff Warren as to why Lucky Palace charities were never granted Class B bingo licenses.

“The sheriff and others manipulated things preventing us from getting a build-out letter which prevented us from starting construction on the building,” testified Bracy.

‘The charities,’ 17 Macon County Charities that applied for bingo licenses for Lucky Palace along with the casino itself allege Sheriff Warren, Milton McGregor and VictoryLand attorneys worked to construct rules to govern electronic bingo that would give VictoryLand a monopoly in the county. The lawsuit also states that the group continued to manipulate those rules through future amendments whenever it looked like Lucky Palace was close to qualifying.

The original rules, drafted by Fred Gray Jr., son of a VictoryLand attorney, along with John Bolton, another VictoryLand attorney, stated that charity bingo licenses would only be granted to charities that wanted to operate at a ‘qualified location.’ That qualified location had to have a building that Sheriff Warren could inspect and have a value, including capital improvements, of at least $5 Million. Under that expectation, VictoryLand was the only group at the time who could qualify.

Bracy told the court that soon after the first rules were promulgated in December 2003, he went to talk to Sheriff Warren to declare his intentions to seek bingo licenses to operate Lucky Palace. Lucky Palace was officially formed, in a business sense, in February 2004. Four months later the first amendment to the rules was passed stating that any facility wishing to operate charity bingo must have at least 15 charity applications and it upped the required value of the facility to $15 Million.

Bracy said that’s when he started working to get a written assurance from Sheriff Warren that should he construct a facility, the licenses would be granted. Under the rules, Lucky Palace would have been required to have a facility already built so Sheriff Warren could inspect it before issuing the 15 minimum charities bingo licenses. Bracy testified that his lenders wanted a written guarantee from Sheriff Warren or the licenses before they would provide the money to purchase additional land and front construction costs.

When Bracy started lobbying Warren for the charity licenses, Lucky Palace had no facility, it owned about 3.5 acres of land – not enough for the facility – but it had options to purchase more land. Bracy himself even purchased a chunk of land intended to be signed over to the use of Lucky Palace. Warren still wouldn’t grant Bracy’s charities licenses, nor would he sign what Bracy refers to as a “build-out letter.” That letter would have been the written guarantee Bracy’s lenders wanted before forking over the funds to actually build the facility.

Attorneys pointed out that ultimately, Bracy’s land was never signed over, the land options were never explored and the land that had already been purchased through a financing plan went into foreclosure. Bracy says that’s because of his difficulty with Sheriff Warren that led the stall on the project.

“I thought it was reasonable for us to go to the sheriff to explain why we should get the licenses before the structure was built,” explained Bracy.

Bracy then explained that when he couldn’t get what he ‘needed’ from Warren, Lucky Palace threw support behind a different candidate to oppose Sheriff Warren in the 2006 elections. Lucky Palace and its lenders hoped that ‘their candidate,’ current Shorter Police Chief Sandor Maloy, would be more ‘reasonable’ and help re-write the rules to help Lucky Palace. Bracy testified that he put money in a PAC, somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000, to help Maloy’s campaign.

“I tried to replace Sheriff Warren because of the struggle I had with getting a build-out letter,” said Bracy. “I thought it was the reasonable thing to do.”

Ultimately, Maloy was defeated by Warren. Bracy added they never technically had an agreement with Maloy to re-write the rules. They just hoped Maloy would have been more ‘reasonable.’

Bracy told the court that after repeated attempts to get Sheriff Warren’s cooperation, Warren allegedly told him that to get what he wanted, Bracy would have to sue him.

Bracy did just that.

The lawsuit was filed on December 18, 2006. Lucky Palace and the charities are suing for lost profits due to alleged conspiracy, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as ‘RICO’ as well as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“The lawsuit was to see that justice was done in hopes that we would prevail in getting a license to compete,” said Bracy before adding that he hopes Lucky Palace will eventually come to fruition.

http://www.wsfa.com/story/18374653/day-5-in-macon-co

Testimony for the third day of the civil case between 17 Macon County charities and Lucky Palace, LLC., against Macon County Sheriff David Warren, Macon County Greyhound Park (known as VictoryLand) and Milton McGregor started off with the continuance of testimony from Fred Gray Jr., the attorney Sheriff Warren asked to assist in writing regulations and eventual amendments for the issuance of licenses to operate electronic bingo in Macon County.

The plaintiffs allege conspiracy, violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as ‘RICO’ as well as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on behalf of the defendants. They’re suing for profits lost due to the fact that Lucky Palace was never able to obtain a license to operate because of amendments to the original rule.

Fred Gray Jr. continued the testimony he started for the court on Wednesday. Gray was the attorney Sheriff Warren tasked with drafting the rules and regulations to govern electronic bingo in Macon County following the passage of the referendum allowing charity e-bingo in the county.

Part of the contention with Gray Jr.’s involvement was not his experience, it was his family. Fred Gray Jr.’s father, Fred Gray Sr., is, and has been an attorney on retainer for VictoryLand for a long time. Gray Sr. testified as to his involvement on Tuesday and explained he did not morally agree with gambling. Gray Sr. told the court he knew of his son’s involvement with Sheriff Warren in writing the rules, but he had no input and received nothing of value from McGregor or VictoryLand as a result of his son’s involvement.

Stephen Heninger, attorney for Lucky Palace LLC., produced a memo and series of communications between Gray Jr. and Gray Sr. involving Gary Huckaby, another attorney for Lucky Palace. Huckaby notified Gray Sr. that he was seeking to collect all documents containing information on Lucky Palace from the Sheriff. The memo from Gray Sr. to Gray Jr. said “let’s go over it and see what we’re compelled to send.”

Gray Jr. explained that his father’s involvement was not as a representative of VictoryLand but as a friend of Huckaby. Gray Sr. and Huckaby are both past presidents of the Alabama Bar Association – Gray Jr. says his father “simply responded” at his behest.

Gray Jr. was also questioned about his relationship with John Bolton, another VictoryLand attorney. Bolton allegedly wrote the rules and regulations Gray handed over to Sheriff Warren to sign. Gray told the court that Bolton did write some of the regulations and said he did correspond with Bolton, however he couldn’t remember to what extent Bolton was responsible for the rules that were ultimately adopted.

“I can’t really go back in my mind and re-create that now,” explained Gray. The events described in this case took place back in 2003 and 2004. Since then, the Gray Law Firm where some of these documents were stored caught fire and those documents were lost. Servers at a different law firm crashed in 2005 meaning another large chunk of documents were forever lost. Most of this case must come from the memory of the witnesses – and these events took place almost 10 years ago.

Gray told the court shortly before finishing testimony, “It was never my intent, nor was it the Sheriff’s intent to draft rules that would favor VictoryLand.”

Milton McGregor also testified as a witness for the case on Thursday. Despite past legal proceedings, this was McGregor’s first time testifying in court in front of a jury.

McGregor explained that he had no hand in the creation of the Local Constitutional Amendment that allowed for the operation of charity electronic bingo in Macon County.

“The effort to pass the bingo referendum wasn’t made at my request. I didn’t oppose it. I definitely had an interest in it after it passed because I was definitely interested in being an operator for charities.

McGregor said that after the referendum passed, he began to get calls from charities wanting him to offer electronic bingo at VictoryLand. McGregor met with Sheriff Warren and Fred Gray Jr. to express his interest in operating an e-bingo facility.

“I thought, after visiting the Native American facilities, that if I built something nice, I thought people would come and be entertained…I was excited to get started for these charities,” said McGregor.

At that meeting McGregor told Sheriff Warren and Gray Jr. that he wanted to get started “soon.” He also offered the assistance of two VictoryLand attorneys – John Bolton and David Johnston. Bolton and Johnston both had experience with gaming regulations and McGregor thought they could serve as a “resource of information” in writing the regulations Warren needed, should they decide to use them.

McGregor told the court that he meant Bolton and Johnston’s involvement to merely be a resource and says they weren’t acting in the interests of VictoryLand, he thought they were acting on the best interests of Macon County.

“I was trying to be helpful,” explained McGregor.

Ultimately, McGregor said, he just wanted rules that were “fair and equally applied.” He said he would have accepted any rules and that he did not personally give input as to what he thought those rules should look like. McGregor testified that he didn’t even read the rules until after they were finalized, signed by Sheriff Warren and published in the local paper.

“Bolton would never propose anything from the point of view of VictoryLand,” said McGregor. “I gave him no instructions other than to be helpful if his help would be needed.”

McGregor did admit that he wanted ruled that were best for Macon County and also for VictoryLand. And that since Bolton was a Victoryland attorney, McGregor probably did pay for the work he put in when assisting Gray Jr. in drafting the rules.