Hours after Attorney General Troy King announced he would take over Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling, two of the state’s largest slot machine casinos publicized they would reopen.
But when Riley and task force Commander John Tyson refused to hand over the reins, gambling operators at Houston County’s Country Crossing and Lowndes County’s White Hall Entertainment Center decided they wouldn’t take the chance of facing a raid. White Hall officials said they still plan to reopen at some point.
Country Crossing’s attorney Will Matthews told the Dothan Eagle, “My advice to our clients was that I thought we could open with Troy King superintending the task force and firing John Tyson.” He added if King has Tyson removed, then “we’re back in business.”
Jeff Emerson, communications director for Riley, said, “It’s clear to see the casino bosses are pulling hard for Troy King to win. … They’ve admitted it. Not even Troy King can deny that.”
Although King said he planned to “bring order” to the “chaos” caused by the task force’s raids and legal investigations, Riley said King’s announcement almost immediately led to “expanded gambling” with a “promise of protection” for “casino bosses.”
In his March 22 announcement, King said he wrote letters to Emory Folmar, administrator of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, and Col. Christopher Murphy, director of the Department of Public Safety, advising them to “refrain from conducting additional raids until further notice.”
King said he had appointed Montgomery attorney J. Douglas McElvy as lead lawyer for the state.
Folmar and Murphy told King he had no authority to call off their law enforcement efforts. “In fulfilling our oaths to uphold Alabama’s laws, we cannot and will not agree to pledge not to enforce the law, including Alabama’s laws against illegal slot machine gambling. Any facility that engages in illegal slot machine gambling is subject to law enforcement, and those facilities should not expect our agencies to adhere to the ‘moratorium’ you suggest. No criminal is entitled to engage in criminal activity while a civil declaratory judgment proceeding winds its way through the courts.”
Riley agreed. “The attorney general has no authority to tell the Task Force on Illegal Gambling what to do,” he said in a March 23 news conference.
“I created the task force as a working group of executive branch agencies and officials to ensure the laws against slot machines are enforced. All of my actions and appointments have been in conformity with the constitutional and statutory authority of the governor.”
Riley said King’s statements “amount to a power grab.”
“I will vigorously defend the authority of the office of the governor, and I suspect that these issues will ultimately be decided by the Alabama Supreme Court,” Riley said.
Tyson said the Supreme Court already seems to be positioning itself to discuss the power of the governor and the authority of the attorney general. On March 25, the High Court refused to dismiss the task force’s appeal of a recent Circuit Court ruling giving King authority to represent the state in its gambling cases.
A dismissal of the task force appeal could have implied the justices thought King should take over the task force, which the governor’s office believes would lead to expanded gambling around the state.
“We thought it was an important decision,” Tyson said. “The defendants had moved to throw us out because of the action of the attorney general. The Supreme Court denied that motion and further directed briefs immediately on whether the governor, the task force or any member of the task force needed to get any prior approval from the attorney general before we do anything.”
A ruling could be delivered as early as April.
In the mean time, drama continues between King and the task force.
Tyson said King is declaring “war on the rule of law” and “is determined to undermine the fundamental principle that no one is above the law. He is determined to do whatever it takes to protect the gambling bosses.”
King discredited the task force’s efforts, said it is time for a “new approach” and gave it 24 hours to “turn over” all evidence gathered in gambling cases against so-called “electronic bingo” operations in Greene, Houston, Jefferson, Lowndes and Macon counties.
“Judging by the dramatic nature of the events that the task force has taken based on this evidence, I can only anticipate that the evidence is overwhelming,” he said. “I will use this evidence to implement the advice I suggested to the task force. Delays in providing this evidence will delay our court filings and could even allow the two halls that voluntarily closed to reopen.”
With the task force under his leadership, King said he would file lawsuits in the aforementioned counties seeking declaratory judgments to determine if “electronic bingo” machines are legal. He added that his approach would be a “clear path” to answer the question everyone in Alabama wants resolved — whether electronic bingo gambling is legal. “We simply can wait no longer. We simply will do it ourselves.”
Riley said giving King the requested evidence would be like handing it over to the state’s gambling bosses.
“That evidence was part of a criminal investigation, but the attorney general has made clear that he has no intention of filing criminal charges,” Riley said. “Instead he wants to file civil cases. In civil cases, the other side gets to see every document you have. So if we give that information to the attorney general, he will have to give it to the casino bosses. That will destroy the criminal investigation and could endanger our undercover law enforcement officers, and we are not going to do that.”
Tyson took it a step further. “The attorney general has cited no rule of law that entitles him to obtain the evidence held by these law enforcement officials and I know of none,” he said.
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