Foxwoods gets extension in struggle to keep license
HARRISBURG - Lawyers for Foxwoods Casino came here Thursday to ask the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board for an extra three months to gather documents and depositions for their fight to keep the project's gambling license.
They walked away with a two-week extension.
Since late spring, the state board has been moving toward revocation of the South Philadelphia casino's $50-million license.
As a Friday deadline in the discovery process loomed, Robert Graci, an attorney for Foxwoods, said the project was facing a "death sentence" and complained the board was not giving the partners "what we think we're reasonably entitled to."
However, while refusing to move Foxwoods' deadline to Oct. 30, the commissioners did direct their own lawyers to negotiate some wiggle room if they saw just cause.
In the midst of arguing for more time, another Foxwoods lawyer, F. Warren Jacoby, let slip that his clients expect to submit by next week the outline of a deal with a new investor to replace Steve Wynn. In April, the Las Vegas casino mogul abruptly backed out of an agreement to build and operate the gaming hall.
Jacoby did not name the new player in the project, but Harrah's Entertainment has confirmed that it is in talks with the Foxwoods group.
"I hope we'll have a term sheet" - spelling out nonbinding elements of the deal - "to the board next week," Jacoby said after the hearing.
According to sources, Harrah's would invest in the foundering project and operate a casino on the Delaware River waterfront.
With the collapse of the Wynn deal, lawyers for the gaming board moved on April 29 to revoke the project's license on grounds that it was no longer financially viable. The board will hold a hearing on the matter, but a date has yet to be set.
During Thursday's hearing, lawyers for both the gaming board and Foxwoods complained about a difficult discovery process. Each side accused the other of not being forthcoming with documents.
Dale Miller, an enforcement lawyer for the gaming board, said that some of the documents Foxwoods has requested are confidential. Jacoby, meanwhile, took issue with enforcement lawyers deposing Foxwoods' former general counsel, Nick Moles.
At the hearing, commissioners expressed impatience and frustration with the Foxwoods group, Philadelphia Entertainment and Development Partners (PEDP), which won a competitive bid for a slots license in Philadelphia in December 2006.
During the hearing, gaming board chairman Gregory Fajt told Jacoby, "Your client has had an asset of this Commonwealth and that asset is wasting." Kenneth McCabe, another commissioner, added, "Part of my frustration is this seems to keep dragging out for years. We have to get a resolution."
PEDP includes the Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe of Connecticut and a group of individual investors, including Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider and the charitable interests of South Jersey lawyer Lewis Katz and Philadelphia developer Ron Rubin. Under the original licensing agreement, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe was supposed to lead the effort but is facing economic problems of its own.
PEDP has $100 million at stake, Jacoby said. That includes $50 million spent on the license, plus additional debt to develop a casino on Columbus Boulevard.
Jacoby said the request for more time for discovery was not an attempt to delay a revocation hearing.
"We're only trying to get due process and reasonable discovery," he said.