By Sondra Washington
Since the federal government indicted several high-powered casino owners, legislators and lobbyists for a vote-buying scheme at the Alabama Statehouse last year, many are wondering if gambling supporters will push as forcefully — if at all — in this year’s legislative session to legalize gambling. But with less than one week until the start of the 2011 session, some of the state’s most influential gambling supporters may be too preoccupied fighting their federal charges to work on new legislation.
Ronnie Gilley, developer of Houston County’s Country Crossing, is one of the defendants in the case whose company was behind the Sweet Home Alabama ads of 2009 and 2010, which urged state residents to call for the legalization of gambling. Now Gilley is imprisoned in Montgomery for bribery charges separate from the original corruption charges.
On Feb. 7, U.S. Magistrate Terry Moorer revoked Gilley’s bond for attempting to bribe and silence Jarrod Massey, a former lobbyist for Country Crossing and former co-defendant who entered a plea agreement with the federal government for the original corruption charge.
According to The Birmingham News, Moorer said there was more than enough probable cause to believe Gilley had violated the terms of his release by the contacts and conversations he had with Massey. The News also reported that Massey testified that “he believed Gilley offered him a piece of his casino developments (in Alabama and Mississippi worth up to $1 million) to ‘hold the line’ on a false story to mislead federal investigators looking into allegations of buying and selling votes on a gambling bill before the Legislature last year.”
The public corruption trial proceedings are set to begin in June.
In related news, The News recently reported that “a network of political action committees” helped state casino and racetrack owners “funnel nearly $6.3 million from gambling interests into 2010 political campaigns.”
Joe Godfrey, executive director of Alabama Citizens Action Program, said he was not surprised.
“But (Scripture says) greater is He who is in us than he that is in the world. Despite all their (gambling supporters) financial backing, the people of Alabama elected people most of whom are not supportive of gambling in the state.”
And in other news, the city of Birmingham may be in a gambling-related federal investigation.
According to The News, the U.S. Attorney’s Office subpoenaed “City Council voting records on (its 2009) electronic bingo ordinance along with phone records, telephone messages and e-mails from former Councilman Joel Montgomery’s office.”
Although Montgomery led the city’s efforts to legalize slot machine-style electronic bingo, he reportedly denied any wrongdoing.
The city council originally passed the ordinance and began issuing electronic bingo permits, but repealed it in October 2009 after Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls threatened law enforcement actions against any establishment offering the kind of gambling planned in the ordinance.
At the time, several council members intended to ask Alabama legislators for an electronic bingo gambling amendment to legalize the activity and give the city access to the “revenue” it would create. But before the council voted, Montgomery called attention to the council’s previous actions.
“I want everyone in the city of Birmingham to pay close attention to the vote,” Montgomery said at the time. “The majority of members of this council voted for that and now we are going to repeal it.”
Montgomery, who had asked the council on several occasions to approve the large number of bingo permit applications submitted to the city, also discredited any effect Circuit Judge Robert Vance’s ruling against the kind of slot machines planned for Birmingham may have had on Jefferson County’s bingo plans.
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