Carcieri and his pals: much ado about nothing?

Talking Politics

January 23, 2008 4:17:40 PM

When Matthew Thomas, chief sachem of the Narragansett Indians, recently asked the Carcieri administration to disclose any relationships that the governor or his advisers had with the two principals of BLB Investors, the owner of Twin River, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal told the Providence Journal, in a story published January 8, “There are no relationships.”

The statement elicited incredulity from the Narragansetts and some of their supporters, because Stephen J. Carlotti, a Carcieri confidante who is a partner at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder in Providence, played a leading role in helping BLB to get established in Rhode Island.

Last February, for example, when Carcieri appointed Carlotti to chair the Judicial Nominating Commission, the ProJo’s Edward Fitzpatrick noted that in 2005 the Barrington lawyer “[had] represented Lincoln Park’s new owners in their successful bid for additional video-slot machines . . . .” The story described how Carlotti had been a member of Carcieri’s transition team and of his political finance committee.

Similarly, in July 2005, a Political Scene item in the ProJo identified Carlotti as one of the two lawyers “who most visibly helped BLB clear Rhode Island’s executive, legislative, and regulatory hurdles.”

Neal says he recalls the the ProJo’s question as being whether only Governor Carcieri had a relationship with Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman, the two BLB principals. “Mr. Carlotti’s situation [as a Carcieri ally] has already been reported in both the Journal and the Phoenix,” Neal says. “It does not appear to make sense on its face that I would be asked to disclose information that has already been disclosed, and has already been reported on by two major media institutions in Rhode Island.”)

The plot thickens a bit considering how Jeffrey Grybowski, who joined the Carcieri administration from a job at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, ultimately becoming the governor’s chief of staff, subsequently returned to the firm after having helped to negotiate part of a state agreement with BLB.

Thomas says the ties between the governor, Carlotti, Grybowski, and Hinckley, Allen “are very concerning to us.” He calls the connections emblematic of “the old boy kind of network, where everybody kind of takes care of one another and they all work with one another. I just think that reeks and everyone should be concerned about that.”

Yet it’s also true that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly — which supported the Narragansetts’ casino quest in 2006 — signed off on the agreement between the state and BLB. Another relevant point is how (prior to BLB’s acquisition of Lincoln Park) the gambling parlor’s former GM and his British boss were indicted in 2003, posing a potential threat to one of Rhode Island’s largest sources of state revenue.

Asked about the chief’s comments, Carlotti says, “No one was taking care of anybody, except to try to take care of themselves.” He says the state struck a very hard bargain with BLB, an agreement that “was fully aired publicly,” and supported by the legislature. “[It] could not have passed unless people thought it was fair,” Carlotti says. “It was all open and above-board.”

(Grybowski did not respond to requests for comment. According to Carlotti, Grybowski was not involved in the initial contract negotiation between the state and BLB. Carlotti says Grybowski was among the state officials who tried to interpret the so-called “slippage clause” after BLB and the state had already agreed on “the original business arrangement.”)

Of course, the frustration of the Narragansetts — who were rebuffed by Carcieri in their call earlier this month for a “gaming summit” — likely stems from the difficulty of generating forward momentum on their own casino quest.

Meanwhile, the big winners in all this are arguably Kerzner and Wolman, who, as the Boston Globe recently noted, own part of the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut and have partnered with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe for an envisioned casino in Middleboro, Massachusetts.