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Maine Ethics Commission Votes to Investigate Casino Ballot Campaign's Funding

Robert F. Bukaty
/
Associated Press/file
Shawn Scott, third from left, examines papers during a hearing before the Maine Harness Racing Commission in Augusta in December of 2003.

The Maine Ethics Commission voted Friday to launch an investigation into the funding sources of a controversial ballot campaign attempting to build a casino in York County.

The commission wants to determine whether the campaign properly disclosed its funders. Attorneys for the corporations backing the campaign contend they’re not hiding anything, but also appear poised to fight the probe.

Up until last month, finance reports for the Horseracing Jobs Fairness campaign showed that over $4.3 million in funding has come from a single source: Miami resident Lisa Scott. But the campaign was forced to update its funding sources last month, in response to press reports, inquiries from state lawmakers and the ethics commission.

The new reports showed that Scott had received funds from a web of corporations, including one company based in Japan and another in Las Vegas. At least one of those companies has ties to Scott’s brother Shawn Scott, a casino developer with a checkered past.

Attorney Bruce Merrill, representing the ballot campaign, told the commission that his client was not aware that it was supposed to disclose the sources over a year ago. Commissioner Richard Nass, however, was skeptical.

“What you do know is that the voters of Maine have a right to know where the money is coming from, and you’ve made that particularly difficult here by having these multiple sources and bank accounts. If it’s all Lisa Scott, you know, it should be easily related to Lisa Scott. And it’s not. It’s all over the place here,” Nass said.

Merrill insisted that the pass-through entities weren’t designed to hide anything, and the reason they were not disclosed originally, he said, has to do with ambiguity in Maine law.

Nass didn’t buy it.

“That’s a problem in the way the statute is written now,” Merrill said.

“No it isn’t. No, that’s smoke and mirrors. It’s not,” Nass said.

“You show me in statute that we have to disclose original source. It isn’t there,” Merrill said.

The commission also questioned the nature of money transfers to Lisa Scott and, ultimately, to the Horse Racing Jobs Fairness campaign.

Merrill described the transfers as nonrefundable loans. He also suggested that Scott would not have to repay the loans if the ballot question failed, and that she would financially benefit if it passed.

“Commissioner William Lee repeatedly questioned the nature of the transfers. At one point Alexis Fallon, an attorney representing the Scott family, suggested that the nature and reason for the transfers are out of the commission’s purview,” Merrill said.

Attorneys for the campaign indicated that they would cooperate with the investigation, but at least two of them refused to accept the commission’s subpoena for records immediately after the meeting.

The investigation into whether the campaign filings were late is expected to be completed quickly. But the probe into the network of finances could take longer, especially if the campaign and its funders refuse to cooperate.

This story was originally published on June 9, 2016 at 12:19 p.m.

Journalist Steve Mistler is Maine Public’s chief politics and government correspondent. He is based at the State House.