{"id":28781,"date":"2020-11-14T08:02:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T16:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=28781"},"modified":"2021-03-28T04:28:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T12:28:50","slug":"busted-sisolak-gets-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/busted-sisolak-gets-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"Busted!; Sisolak gets sick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you held out any hope that Project First Light<\/strong> in Taunton<\/strong> would every see day, you can forget about it. The disenrolled Mashpee Wampanoags<\/strong> got slammed with some bad news yesterday as tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell<\/strong> and Rhode Island<\/strong> architect David DeQuattro<\/strong> were arrested by the FBI<\/strong>. The charges include bribery solicitation and extortion<\/a>, and Cromwell faces the brunt of them. Although Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/strong> (D) and other Massachusetts<\/strong> politicians have carried water for the Mashpee Wamps in the past, nobody’s going to want to touch them with a barge pole now. Both men are free on $25K bond. The tribe is already seriously in hock<\/a> to Genting Group, which may also want to give its former partners a wide berth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports the Boston Globe<\/em>, “Prosecutors allege that through his role as a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe\u2019s Gaming Authority, Cromwell contracted with DeQuattro\u2019s architecture and design company, RGB Architects<\/strong> or Robinson Green Beretta Corp<\/strong>., in connection with the tribe\u2019s plans to build a $1 billion casino on reservation land in Taunton.” Per the federal indictment, Cromwell shook down DeQuattro for ten grand, money he parked in his and Mrs. Cromwell’s bank account. He also created a shell company, One Nation Development<\/strong>, to cover his alleged misdeeds. DeQuattro was reimbursed for the bribe by the president of his company, an unindicted co-conspirator, it would appear. Over time, Cromwell supposedly extorted $44,000 from DeQuattro and \u201c spent all of the money on personal expenses, including payments to his mistress,\u201d according to U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Other benefits allegedly received by Cromwell were a Bowflex<\/strong> machine worth $1,700 and a comped stay at a Boston<\/strong> hotel, goodies for which RGB received hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from Wampanoag Gaming Authority<\/strong>. Confronted with all this bad news, the Wampanoag said they were “deeply concerned” and would convene an emergency meeting, while RGB took down its Web site for “scheduled maintenance.” Uh-huh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a poor choice of simile, Cromwell had vowed to build the “Taj Mahal<\/strong> of casinos.” (Casinos and Taj Mahal don’t go well together. See Trump, Donald.) The tribe’s casino ambitions have a troubled track record, with previous chairman Glenn Marshall<\/strong> being convicted of fraudulent use of casino-investment monies. It’s perhaps supremely beside the point now, but is there any need in the saturated Massachusetts market for yet another casino? Any, let’s let Lelling have the last word: \u201cMany American Indians face a host of difficult financial and social issues. They require\u2014and deserve\u2014real leadership. But it appears that Cromwell\u2019s priority was not to serve his people, but to line his own pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"Covid-19<\/strong> plays no political favorites<\/a>. As though to underscore its virulence in Nevada, it has sidelined Gov. Steve Sisolak<\/strong> (D). The chief executive announced that he had contracted Coronavirus<\/strong>, although he is asymptomatic at present. The guv will be holing up in his Carson City<\/strong> mansion for the next 10 days. Contract tracing is underway. Maybe it was that ribbon-cutting at the DMV that did it. (D0es anything good ever come from a visit to the DMV?) \u201cI\u2019m feeling fine. I don’t have any symptoms. I\u2019m a little tired, but I’ve been tired since March when we started fighting COVID,\u201d Sisolak told Megan Messerly<\/strong>. \u201cI think this just puts the spotlight on the fact that you can take all the precautions that are possible and you can still contract the virus, and I don’t know how I got it, but we’re going to quarantine and get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question may be whether Sisolak is doing enough. Covid cases are logging in at a record-level (f0r Nevada<\/strong>) of 1,380 per day, yet the Silver State remains wide open for business. How bad do things have to get before restrictions are reimposed? At a national level, longtime and respected epidemiologist Michael Osterholm<\/strong> wants to provide a severe cure. He would prescribe a nationwide lockdown, with workers to be compensated for four to six weeks of lost wages. Warning of “pandemic fatigue” leading to “Covid hell,” Osterholm proposes desperate measures but, with well over 240,000 Americans dead it arguably might be time to for some desperation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that,\u201d Osterholm said. \u201cIf we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks.\u201d He added later that his opinions were strictly his own. \u201cMy only point was if we are going to keep making restrictions state-by-state, there is no compensation for the businesses that are being impacted,\u201d he told NBC<\/strong>. The incoming Joe Biden<\/strong> administration quickly distanced itself from the idea of a lockdown<\/a>, however. Looking on the bright side, Osterholm said Australia<\/strong>– or New Zealand<\/strong>-style anti-viral measures would mean \u201cWe could really watch ourselves cruising into the vaccine availability in the first and scond quarter of next year while bringing back the economy long before that.” Let’s hope he’s right about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\" Did you have millions wagered on Donald Trump<\/strong> being re-elected? The bad news is that you can’t collect. The good news is that offshore books aren’t calling the election<\/a> for Joe Biden\u2014still\u2014meaning that your money is theoretically still yours. In spite of mounting evidence, like having allegedly “dead” Georgia<\/strong> voters turn up very much alive, sites such as Betfair<\/strong> are hedging on the definitive outcome. That’s pretty “george” of the books, which could collect as much as $5 million from one mega-punter who went all in on Trump. They’re said to be spooked by PaddyPower<\/strong>‘s $1 million mistake in 2016 when it paid out wagers on Hillary Clinton<\/strong>. Even though he’s a staunch Republican, American Gaming Association<\/strong> President Bill Miller<\/strong> has even more fodder for his stump speech on the risks of betting with offshore sites. Still, oddsmakers like BetOnline<\/strong>‘s Adam Burns<\/strong> are keeping their powder dry\u2014and already taking odds on 2024 (President-Elect Biden looks good to win reelection, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris<\/strong> less so.) Said Burns, \u201cIf Biden comes in, it\u2019s a big win for us. If Trump is declared the winner, we will take a bath. It will not be a happy day here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you held out any hope that Project First Light in Taunton would every see day, you can forget about it. The disenrolled Mashpee Wampanoags got slammed with some bad news yesterday as tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell and Rhode Island … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,14,26,120,283,37,189,112,207,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29446,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28781\/revisions\/29446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}