http://www.sunjourna I.com/news/maine/0001/11/30/florida-woman-bankrolls-push-york-county-casino-question- /1853684 Sun Journal 1/16/2016 p.A1, A7 retrieved 1/22/2016 woman bankrolls push for York County casino question in Maine

SCOTT THISTLE, State Politics Editor

LEWISTON - A Lewiston political operative is again at the center of a campaign that's seeking to bring another casino to Maine, this time to York County.

The campaign has spent $156,ooo since it began in October, according to the most recent campaign finance reports available from the state.

Much of that money - $111,935 - has been paid to the Lewiston-based Olympic Consulting, which is owned and operated by Stavros Mendros, a former state representative and city councilor. More than half of that money, $67,000, was reported as salaries for those gathering signatures.

Contacted by phone Friday, Mendros declined to comment, saying he couldn't discuss anything about the campaign, its finances or its tactics. Mendros previously worked on a failed 2011 referendum effort to place a casino in downtown Lewiston.

Maine voters have been asked five times to authorize casinos but have only approved two of those ballot questions, the first in 2005 for Bangor and the second in 2012 for Oxford.

A call to the York County casino campaign's Augusta-based treasurer, Cheryl Timberlake - a registered lobbyist in Maine - was not returned Friday.

Details in an earlier campaign finance report for the current campaign show expenses that include bus tickets from Texas to Maine and lodging at the Motel 6 in Lewiston. The campaign report also shows expenses for automobile rentals and airline tickets.

Lisa Scott, a Miami-based real estate developer, has contributed $1o8,ooo in cash to the campaign, and the most recent report shows the campaign has about a $48,ooo shortfall between cash donations and expenses as of Jan. 15. Scott is the sister of casino developer Shawn Scott, who bought the Bangor Raceway and then bankrolled a 2003 campaign to allow slot machines there, according to a Bangor Daily News report. He eventually sold his operations to the current operator of Hollywood Casino for $51 million.

Another company, Silver Bullet Group, based in Cheyenne, Wyo., was paid $15,000 for salaries of some of those gathering signatures in Maine.

On Friday, a pair of men collecting signatures in front of the Lewiston Public Library on Lisbon Street refused to give their names or to say where they were from.

Both said they were Maine residents but neither would show a reporter from the Sun Journal their identification. When asked for more information about the work they were doing one of the two men said simply, "We're busy; we have to go now."

But Bret Martel, an Auburn resident, who was also collecting signatures for the campaign on Lisbon Street, was happy to show his state-issued driver's license and share his address.

Martel said he was gathering signatures for the casino campaign and was being paid $7 per signature. Martel said he believed he would receive $1o per signature once he reached loo signatures. He said he didn't know the other two men and was simply trying to make a living.

"I've been out since 7 this morning doing this. It's tough to make money in this town, you know," Martel said. "Normally, they only pay a dollar or two per signature so when I found out they were paying seven bucks, up to 1o depending on how many you get, you know, that's money I can earn."

He said some of those gathering signatures are from out of state. Under Maine law, signatures must be witnessed by Maine residents, so the signature gatherers are often paired, one out-of- state person working with one Mainer.

"It's cold right now and we're everywhere," Martel said. "I think this is an important part of the democratic process. Whether or not you want a casino isn't the issue. It's whether or not we get to vote on it compared to if a legislator gets to vote on it, which may or may not have our best interests at heart."

Martel said he had nothing to hide. "Everything is above board," Martel said. He said some gathering signatures had been warned about collecting signatures on private property and were not respectful about it. I think there's a balance that needs to be struck between the process that needs to happen and be respectful enough that when you are asked to leave, you leave," Martel said.

Others, including elected officials, have also questioned some of the tactics being used by the so- called "professionals" gathering signatures.

Bangor City Councilor Ben Sprague and state Rep. Louis Luchini, D-Ellsworth, have spoken out about the campaign's tactics.

Luchini, the House chairman of the Legislature's Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over gambling, called the effort, "another example of out-of-state interests trying to buy Maine's citizen referendum process."

He added, "Maine people don't like that when it happens."

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would bring another casino to southern Maine but in the past have been reluctant to authorize any expansion of gambling without a statewide vote.

Sprague in a Facebook post on Monday wrote that the effort was "dishonest and over the top."

"I don't have a problem with free speech or petition efforts, but it seems that they're being really aggressive about it," said Sprague, who is opposed to any additional casinos in Maine, "and I can't walk around downtown Bangor for a block without being bothered."

According to an employee at one Lewiston business, the signature gatherers had gotten so aggressive inside the business that police were called to remove them. An employee at an Auburn business reported the same behavior to police there.

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, who oversees the ballot question and election process, said those collecting signatures in public places were simply exercising their First Amendment rights. He said it was the same rights newspaper reporters enjoy when they talk to citizens on the street.

Dunlap said the right to free speech doesn't include a responsibility to speak truthfully, but people also are not required to sign anything if they don't like the answers they get from the people asking for a signature. [email protected]

Bangor Daily News staff writers Michael Shepherd and Micky Bidell contributed to this report. Millions of dollars flow into Maine ballot initiative campaigns

www.pressherald.com/2016/06/07/millions-of-dollars-flow-into-maine-ballot-initiative-campaigns/

By Kevin Miller

Politics

Posted June 7, 2016

Updated October 3, 2016

Backers of expanding gun-sale background checks have received more than $3 million so far, and Maine's other four ballot initiatives are also receiving sizable checks.

Millions of dollars are already flowing into the campaigns behind five referendum questions headed to Maine voters this November, potentially setting the stage for record-setting spending on ballot initiatives in the state.

The campaign to expand background checks on private gun sales – one of five citizen’s initiatives on Maine’s November ballot – received more than $2.1 million in donations during May alone, including a $1.7 million contribution on May 26 from the gun-control group backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Factoring money raised and spent to collect petition signatures to qualify for the ballot, the campaign has received roughly $3 million overall, much of that from Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety group, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state.

“We have had great support from our partners and they have provided us with early money to run statewide on an important issue,” said David Farmer, campaign manager for Mainers for Responsible Gun Ownership, which wants to require federal background checks on most private, person-to-person gun sales . “We know the gun lobby has millions of dollars at their disposal … It’s expensive to run elections and we are going to be raising money both in- state and from our national partners.”

The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action had only spent about $31,000 in Maine as of May 31, including $28,600 on polling, according to documents filed with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. But the NRA and other gun owners’ rights groups, including the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, are expected to counter with their own aggressive campaigns against a Maine proposal they believe is unnecessary and will only lead to burdensome restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.

“New York City billionaire Michael Bloomberg is single-handedly bankrolling the Maine gun-control ballot initiative in order to push his big-city-style anti-gun agenda on law-abiding gun owners in the Pine Tree State,” Lars Dalseide, spokesman for the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. “Despite the gun-control lobby’s misleading rhetoric, Bloomberg’s initiative will not reduce crime and instead will place excessive restrictions on law- abiding citizens, turning them into criminals. We cannot let Bloomberg’s Wall Street fortune drown out the voices of Second Amendment supporters in Maine.”

1/3 Costly ballot initiative campaigns are not a new phenomenon in Maine. In 2009, supporters of same-sex marriage spent more than $4.5 million in their unsuccessful campaign to legalize the practice in Maine. Opponents of bear hunting using bait, traps and dogs spent $2.5 million on their failed campaign to ban the practices in 2014.

But the 2016 election season is shaping up to be the costliest in Maine history, at least for ballot initiatives. The five citizen’s initiatives on the ballot this November represent a record for Maine.

In addition to gun background checks, Maine voters will also be asked whether they want to: legalize marijuana for recreational use; increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020; impose a 3 percent surcharge on households earning $200,000 or more to increase funding to public schools; and approve a ranked-choice voting system in the state.

Many of those campaigns have also received sizable checks from outside the state.

Mainers for Fair Wages, the ballot question committee organized by the Maine People’s Alliance and the Maine AFL- CIO to increase Maine’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, had received $152,250 in donations this year through May 31. The -based Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation, which supports progressive causes, gave $50,000 to the campaign while the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United in New York donated $25,000. Another California-based group that supports higher minimum wages, The Fairness Project, has also set up a political action committee in Maine with $40,000 in the bank so far.

The effort to legalize marijuana for recreational use, meanwhile, received $245,000 in contributions between Jan. 1 and May 31, in addition to more than $450,000 collected last year by the campaign and its now-partner Legalize Maine during the signature-gathering process.

Among the campaign’s largest donations to date this year are $100,000 from the New Approach PAC based in , D.C., $25,000 from Drug Policy Action in New York and $25,000 from the Marijuana Policy Project, the national group helping lead legalization measures in Maine and other states.

Legalization referendum questions could be on ballots in more than a half-dozen states this fall if all of those currently in the works qualify for their respective ballots. But David Boyer with the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group organizing Maine’s legalization ballot initiative, said organizations around the country are watching to see whether Maine and Massachusetts become the first East Coast states to legalize the drug. And that prospect could translate into donations.

“There is a lot going on this year,” Boyer said. “California, Nevada, are all looking at regulating marijuana like alcohol. And California is a big state, so there is a lot of attention there. Maine is a small state … but our grassroots (movement) in Maine has always been looked at as a leader” on marijuana issues.

Citizens who Support Maine’s Public Schools, the political action committee formed by the Maine Education Association, had received $105,000 through May 31 from the MEA in support of the K-12 funding ballot initiative. The referendum would impose a 3 percent “surcharge” on household income above $200,000 to help finance public education.

The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting received the bulk of its $71,000 in donations through May 31 from individual donors. Another political action committee supporting the ballot initiative, called The Chamberlain Project PAC, has received $50,000 from the Action Now Initiative based in Texas.

However, perhaps the biggest-money campaign in Maine this election cycle didn’t even qualify for the November ballot.

Horseracing Jobs Fairness spent roughly $3.2 million from late 2015 through May 31 attempting to secure a place on the ballot for a referendum seeking voter approval for another casino in southern Maine. All of that money came

2/3 from one person, Lisa Scott of Florida. She is the sister of international casino developer Shawn Scott, who led the 2003 referendum campaign that authorized Maine’s first combination horse racetrack/slots casino in Bangor.

The Maine Secretary of State’s Office said the campaign failed to qualify for the ballot because Secretary of State Matt Dunlap invalidated tens of thousands of signatures gathered by the paid workers.

3/3 Group appears ready to revive campaign to put casino in York County

www.pressherald.com/2016/10/05/york-county-casino-campaign-may-be-planning-another-ballot-bid/

By Kevin Miller

Politics

Posted October 5, 2016

Updated October 5, 2016

A new $300,000 donation and the hiring of people to circulate petitions point to a push to get a referendum question on the 2017 ballot.

By Kevin MillerStaff Writer

Backers of the campaign that failed to put a referendum question for a southern Maine casino on the November ballot are poised to roll the dice again.

Seven months after Maine’s secretary of state invalidated more than 55,000 of the group’s petition signatures, a pro-casino campaign is stockpiling cash and appears to be gearing up for a drive to gather enough signatures to secure a spot on the 2017 ballot.

The sister of international casino developer Shawn Scott donated $300,000 to Horseracing Jobs Fairness – the group behind the York County casino campaign – on Sept. 28, bringing her total contributions to $3.5 million. Lisa Scott’s latest donation leaves Horseracing Jobs Fairness with nearly $1 million in the bank, according to campaign finance reports filed this week.

The campaign already has gathered more than 35,000 valid signatures from Maine voters – roughly 57 percent of the total needed to qualify for the ballot.

Representatives for the campaign or petition circulators did not return calls for comment Wednesday. But there has been talk recently on internet sites frequented by professional signature-gatherers about a renewed push to collect the remaining signatures in Maine.

Also, the campaign filed paperwork this week providing the Secretary of State’s Office with the names of individuals who have been hired to circulate petitions in Maine.

“That would indicate that there might be some intent to renew their effort,” said Kristen Muszynski, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Matt Dunlap’s office.

An online ad posted on Craigslist seeks workers across the state to gather signatures for an unnamed campaign. While there are currently six campaigns authorized to gather signatures for potential ballot questions, the ad first posted on Sept. 28, the same day as Scott’s $300,000 contribution to Horseracing Jobs Fairness.

1/2 “We will have work for the next 5-6 weeks,” reads the ad offering petitioners $120 per eight-hour day. “Pay is twice per week. This is an independent contractor position.”

The casino campaign has until June 8 to gather the requisite number of signatures. If Horseracing Jobs Fairness is indeed relaunching its signature-gathering effort, it would be the latest twist in a strange, high-priced and controversial campaign to bring gambling to the southern end of the state.

The state already has two gambling establishments: Hollywood Casino in Bangor and Oxford Casino in western Maine. A casino in York County, however, could more readily draw gamblers from population centers in neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

The proposed ballot measure was written in a way that it would allow just one person – Las Vegas entrepreneur Shawn Scott – to bring slot machines or a casino to York County. Scott successfully won voter approval for Maine’s first gambling facility in 2003, but ultimately sold the rights to build what is now Hollywood Casino to another firm, reportedly netting himself $51 million.

Lisa Scott, a Miami resident described as a self-employed real estate developer, has contributed all $3.5 million reported by the campaign so far, but the significant spending did not lead to a spot on this November’s ballot.

In March, Dunlap invalidated 55,776 of the 91,294 petition signatures submitted by the campaign, because the signers were not registered voters, signatures were duplicates or there were authenticity questions about the notary’s signature, among other reasons. That left just 35,518 valid signatures, well short of the 61,123 needed to qualify.

For weeks, Dunlap’s office and local town clerks and the media had received complaints about sloppy, illegal or deceitful practices by circulators gathering signatures on street corners, outside stores or on city sidewalks. Those circulators – many of them full-time signature-gatherers who work on campaigns nationwide – were reportedly being offered up to $10 a signature plus free housing and transportation as organizers sprinted to meet the cutoff for submitting petitions to state elections officials.

The high-profile campaign shed light on the growing national industry surrounding ballot initiatives in which professional petitioners travel around the country to solicit for signatures.

Some of the petition circulators in Maine have complained that they were never paid, a claim complicated by the state’s invalidation of more than 55,000 signatures. The fact that Horseracing Jobs Fairness had $963,493 in the bank as of Sept. 30 is likely to renew calls for payment among those who feel they were stiffed during the last signature drive.

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2/2 (http://bangordailynews.com/) A casino mogul’s controversial trail runs from Maine to Laos and back again

Micky Bedell | BDN

Ralph Tripp, 32, of Bangor and Maurice Gunn coordinate on a signature­gathering effort on a 2016 referendum for a York County casino outside the garage at Pickering Square in Bangor in this January 2016 file photo.

By Michael Shepherd (http://bangordailynews.com/author/mshepherd/), BDN Staff (http://bangordailynews.com) AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine has been good to Shawn Scott, with voters helping him in 2003 to a casino deal that pushed him toward what a judge pegged nearly two years ago as a net worth of more than $100 million. The Pine Tree State could soon be even better to him: The developer from the U.S. Virgin Islands is behind a ballot initiative that would hand him and his associates the license to a new casino in York County that qualified for the 2017 statewide ballot last week behind a political committee run by his sister that has already invested $4.2 million in the campaign.

It’s another example of a savvy Scott strategy: Pumping value facilities bought cheaply by persuading voters to allow slot machines, which led to windfalls in Louisiana and Bangor that made him a big­time player on the national gaming scene. At the same time, he has attracted scrutiny from regulators — perhaps most notably in Maine — around a complex web of companies, lawsuits and other problems that contributed to him either being denied or failing to get casino licenses in five states by 2004.

Since then, he has focused on emerging markets in Asia, where Bridge Capital, an offshore company linked to Scott, had a casino seized by the Laotian government in 2015 over allegations of corruption that the company has vehemently denied. That company helped finance an unsuccessful, long­secretive bid for a Massachusetts casino in 2016, and the Maine campaign is similarly opaque: Scott’s sister wouldn’t say whether or not her brother is funding it, but she concedes that he gave it his blessing. Scott’s shrewd efforts in Louisiana and Maine didn’t go smoothly and illuminated some potentially sordid business practices, but they put him on the national scene. Scott, a California native who is 50 years old, gained control of his first casino in Nevada in 1994 and sold it the next year, according to a 2003 report from the Maine Harness Racing Commission . After that, he took control of a casino in North Las Vegas.

By 1997, he was in a fight with Nevada regulators over getting a full license. The state’s Gaming Control Board flagged $3 million in loan money that went to loans for “personal friends” of Scott and John Baldwin, who now run Bridge Capital together. One member called his finances “smoke and mirrors,” and he withdrew the application. Perhaps his most important deal came when he bought a Louisiana racetrack for $10 million and ran a campaign that persuaded voters to allow slot machines there. He sold it in 2001 for more than $130 million without cooperating with a suitability investigation for a license. Then, he went to Maine, buying the distressed Bangor Historic Track for more than $1 million. Two of his companies then funded a $1.7 million campaign in 2003 to allow slot machines there and at Scarborough Downs. Local voters approved slots in Bangor but never at Scarborough Downs (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.scarboroughdowns.com/about.php&sa=D&ust=1485694980842000&usg=AFQjCNGZjV9QUHctzg5­ OTu9crHZdLSmHg). Just after the Maine campaign, Scott was denied a racing license in New York, according to a local newspaper f 6 and the Maine commission’s damning report came out. g)

It alleged “sloppy, if not irresponsible, financial management and accounting practices” at his dozens of companies, flagging his involvement in 37 lawsuits in four states between 1992 and 2000 and documenting top employee Hoolae Paoa’s history of convictions for assault, theft and other offenses. Paoa was denied a license alongside Scott in New York. And in 2004, Scott — again with no license in hand — sold the Bangor facility for $51 million to Penn National Gaming, which now runs Hollywood Casino.

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A Scott­backed effort to legalize slots in Washington, D.C., failed to qualify for the ballot in 2004 after a judge upheld an election board’s decision, noting “a pervasive pattern of fraud, forgeries and other improprieties” in the signature­gathering process, according to The Washington Post.

Since then, Bridge Capital has turned much of its attention overseas, where a casino was seized in a messy and still­active battle with the government of Laos. In 2006, a newspaper in the Virgin Islands reported that Bridge Capital moved from that territory in the Caribbean Sea to the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean after the latter U.S. territory offered to charge them no income, business, excise or earnings taxes for 25 years.

The company calls itself “an international investment banking firm” with clients in the U.S., the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, Cambodia and Laos specializing in high­yield loans, or those with high return rates and high risk of default, and distressed debt, or debt in companies near or going through bankruptcy, among other things.

Baldwin, the CEO, and Scott, the vice chairman and director of business development, each have net worths exceeding $100 million, a federal judge wrote in 2014 1485694980851000&usg=AFQjCNGsd6r7wY75T9zYgkqKJgTl6BddHA) Bridge Capital was behind a Cambodian bank that opened in 2008 and touted its “ability to provide timely financing solutions for borrowers who have come across financial challenges, and are in need of fast, creative financing solutions” in a 2013 filing there. QjCNH3PnW8YY4Vl9JZs8GAuogHIWz2­

In 2007, companies under Bridge Capital’s umbrella were formed in Macau — a Chinese region and gaming paradise — and Aruba — a Caribbean territory of The Netherlands — invested in Laos, an authoritarian, one­party southeast Asian nation that offered a low tax rate and a regional casino monopoly, according to court records. The partnership broke down in 2012, when the sides went to arbitration under international laws. In 2014, they had an agreement that the casino would be sold to a buyer with no connection to Scott or Baldwin. In 2015, that agreement broke down and Laos seized and later sold the casino.

The government also re­opened a criminal investigation into Bridge Capital, alleging bribery and tax evasion linked to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes that cost the government $70 million in tax revenue. Baldwin called the allegations “utterly false” in court records and said the company was being punished for not paying bribes.

The same year, Laos went to a federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands in a bid to obtain discovery from Bridge Capital. A judge denied that request last year, but an arbitration dispute is still ongoing. Scott’s sister fronts the Maine campaign, but she said it was blessed by her brother, who along with old Bangor allies was behind another opaque 2016 effort in Massachusetts. The $4.2 million southern Maine campaign has been solely funded by Lisa Scott, Shawn Scott’s sister, who lives in Miami and runs the political committee backing the question. Until the effort qualified for the ballot, she made no public statements about it. But on Friday, she responded to a set of emailed questions from the Bangor Daily News, dodging several key ones, including whether or not her brother or one of his companies gave her the campaign money and whether Baldwin or Paoa are involved. However, Lisa Scott wrote that she “approached” her brother with “my plans for a Southern Maine entertainment complex, and he said that I was welcome to pursue the opportunity and wished me success in bringing jobs and tax revenues as well as helping to preserve the horse racing industry.” She said she’s “drawing up plans now and looking at sites.” “I personally plan to oversee this project and am committed to assembling a world­class team resulting in a facility that all of Maine can be proud of,” she wrote. The Maine campaign hasn’t fully taken shape yet, but a 2016 referendum in Massachusetts that lost with just 40 percent of votes may provide some clues as to what it’ll look like. Days before that November vote to allow slots in Revere, Massachusetts, campaign finance documents previously showing that the bid was funded by a Delaware corporation were amended to show funding from Bridge Capital, according to The Boston Globe. Last week, the political committee agreed to pay $1.6 million in penalties, MassLive reported.

gimj5pbjv5LA) The previous month, that effort’s frontman, Eugene McCain, told the Globe that Shawn Scott wasn’t involved, even though he said that Scott and Paoa joined him to scout properties. But Lisa Scott told the BDN that one of Shawn Scott’s companies had a minority interest in the prospective site, though he’s “partially retired” and never contemplated a management role.

By the end, Bridge Capital contributed $1.8 million of the campaign total of nearly $3.8 million. Virtually all of the rest came from Regent Able Associate Co., a Japanese consulting company and two of that company’s employees, based respectively in Japan and Cambodia. Most of the money was funneled into the campaign through a company owned by Lisa Scott.

More clues to Shawn Scott’s involvement in Massachusetts existed before the filing change: One was the involvement of Bangor City Councilor David Nealley, who debated twice in favor of the proposal — including once on public radio — citing his city’s experience with Hollywood Casino.

Massachusetts campaign finance reports show that Nealley was paid more than $4,900 for that. He’s also an old Scott ally who made nearly $20,000 in the 2003 Maine campaign in Maine, according to records here. He was an employee of a Scott company at that time. On Friday, Nealley said that was the extent of his work in Massachusetts and that he was enlisted on behalf of Lisa Scott for those debates. But he said he has “nothing to do with the Maine project” and as a Bangor resident, he opposes expanding gaming past existing casinos in Bangor and Oxford. “They know I’m very proud of the Bangor project, and that Bangor project funds our regional civic center,” he said, “and as far as I’m concerned, we don’t need anything else in Maine, period.” BDN writer Danielle McLean contributed to this report.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/29/the­point/a­casino­moguls­controversial­trail­runs­from­maine­to­laos­and­back­again/ (http://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/29/the­ point/a­casino­moguls­controversial­trail­runs­from­maine­to­laos­and­back­again/) printed on May 30, 2017

Lawmakers blast Maine casino bid after lobbyist admits offshore backing

BDN File David McKenzie, 40, of Bangor signs a petition outside the garage at Pickering Square in Bangor, Jan. 13, 2016. By Michael Shepherd, BDN Staff Posted March 29, 2017, at 10:57 a.m. AUGUSTA, Maine — A lobbyist hastily hired by an offshore firm run by controversial developer Shawn Scott told a confrontational panel of Maine legislators Wednesday that the firm is behind the 2017 ballot question to add a casino in York County. He also said that if Maine voters pass the question, the firm plans to sell the rights, with the hearing causing a top lawmaker to blast the plan’s backers for “major corruption.” The hearing before the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee saw the first admission of Bridge Capital’s involvement in the effort, which prompted questions about the company’s past in emerging markets in Asia, where one of its casinos was seized by the authoritarian Laotian government in 2015 and sold over alleged corruption and tax evasion. The testimony from Portland lobbyist Dan Riley also confirmed what was obvious to many observers: Backers of the proposal plan to sell the rights to the facility if voters approve it, just as Scott did with the Bangor Raceway after a 2003 campaign that led to him selling the rights in 2004 to what became Hollywood Casino. “I think we have major corruption issues in front of us here,” Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, the committee’s co-chairman, said after the hearing. “I would just say that if the government of Laos thinks you’re corrupt, we have a major problem.” The question qualified for Maine’s ballot in January, and it’s written in a way that would make Scott, who lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and his associates at Northern Mariana Islands-based Bridge Capital the only people who would be able win the license for the new casino. Bridge Capital is run by Scott and CEO John Baldwin, each of whose net worth exceeds $100 million, a federal judge wrote in 2014. The campaign has been backed by $4.2 million through January from Scott’s sister, Lisa Scott, who has kept a low profile, but promised 800 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs if a casino is built. On Wednesday, Riley became the first person to testify in public on behalf of the casino backers, saying he was hired directly by a Bridge Capital lawyer in an email he received at 12:45 a.m. and saw less than four hours before the 9 a.m. hearing before the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Citing that tight timeframe, Riley said he wasn’t prepared to answer many questions the panel had, including whether or not Bridge Capital provided the money Lisa Scott has used to back the bid. He said he has never had contact with Horseracing Jobs Fairness, the ballot question committee funded by Lisa Scott. However, Riley said the company’s “game plan” is to sell the license if approved. He also said Bridge Capital was in talks to buy Scarborough Downs before the racetrack was provisionally sold to another investment group in a transaction announced last week, and backers have talked to several municipalities about the possibility of a casino. Scott has become famous for pumping value into facilities bought relatively cheaply by persuading voters to allow slots there, such as he did in Bangor and Louisiana, where he sold a facility in 2001 for more than $130 million after buying it for $10 million without cooperating with a suitability investigation for a license. Scott’s Maine activities have also followed him, especially because of a 2003 state Harness Racing Commission report alleging “sloppy, if not irresponsible” financial management at his companies, flagging his involvement in 37 lawsuits in four states between 1992 and 2000 and documenting a top employee’s history of convictions for assault, theft and other offenses. He sold casino rights in Bangor without getting a license. Concerns on the panel swirled around Scott and Bridge Capital’s past, particularly in Laos, where the company has denied the authoritarian government’s allegations. However, Maine has no statewide gaming system, which has left the establishment of casinos up to individual referendums that established the existing facilities in Bangor and Oxford. The committee’s co-chairmen, Mason and Rep. Louis Luchini, D-Ellsworth, oppose the proposal. The hearing they called is uncommon, since the Maine Legislature usually sends questions initiated by voters to the ballot without much fanfare. Lawmakers can’t stop citizen initiatives from going on the ballot, but they can put competing measures on the same subjects alongside them. At one point, Sen. Ronald Collins, R-Wells, walked out of the hearing room after saying the “slick operators” backing the casino would try to sway voters near Election Day with “slick advertising” without regard for Maine’s gaming system. “It’s not a company that we want operating in Maine,” Luchini said after the hearing. Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the lobbyist’s first name. It is Dan Riley. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the lobbyist’s first name. It is Dan Riley.