Greene County Circuit Judge Eddie Hardaway Jr. ordered the task force off the property in an order issued sometime after midnight today, said task force commander John Tyson Jr.

Tyson said the task force is complying with the order and is leaving Greenetrack, for now.

“We will appeal the order to vacate to the Supreme Court today,” Tyson said. He would not say where troopers would gather.

The task force raided the Greene County casino Tuesday morning and began confiscating its 800-plus electronic bingo machines when Hardaway issued an order to the task force to stop.

That order, Hardaway’s second such injunction in a little less than two weeks, was appealed to the state’s high court Tuesday afternoon. The court, which tossed out Hardaway’s initial injunction on Monday, has yet to rule on the Tuesday injunction or on Tyson’s motion that Hardaway be removed from the case.

Governor Riley and Tyson speak often about the “rule of law”. Based on their actions one can only conclude they are referring to and attempting to enforce their own law! It certainly isn’t state law! Since when did the “rule of law” allow for WARRANTLESS RAIDS?

We the people in this state need to be protected FROM the Governor! He has started a very dangerous precedent with his warrantless raids. Did you think a few years ago that you would see the Governor ordering warrantless raids? If this is not stopped you have to be naive to think that warrantless raids won’t go beyond legal electronic bingo facilities in the future.

It’s funny Mr. Tyson mentions “the poster child for corruption”. The corruption of his Mississippi Indian Casino Hack Governor Bob Riley must be on the front of his mind! To see Governor Bob Riley’s Mississippi Indian Casino Money corruption and connections go to: www.rileyswebofdeceit.com

Task force commander vows to appeal ruling preventing bingo raids

By Chuck Dean — The Birmingham News

March 05, 2010, 5:55PM

The commander of Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling said he will ask the Alabama Supreme Court to overturn a temporary restraining order that prevents  the task force from acting against bingo casinos anywhere in the state unless invited by the local district attorney.

Task force commander John Tyson Jr. said he will seek an emergency stay from the high court. Tyson said he did not know when he will file the request but intends to do it quickly.

“This order is the poster child for corruption,” Tyson said.

“This order is wrong and it is dangerous. It denies the people of Alabama the protection of the governor, Supreme Court, the Legislature and the rule of law,” Tyson said. “This order is designed to cripple law enforcement. …  That’s why it’s extremely dangerous.”

A Macon County circuit court judge issued the order today in a case brought by VictoryLand, which sought a restraining order to block the task force from raiding the bingo casino.

VictoryLand, which had been closed for more than a month, reopened this afternoon.

© 2010 al.com. All rights reserved.

““I have never been in an Indian Casino, I have never had a conversation with a Choctaw Indian,”

This as we have found out through some digging is a bold faced LIE!!!!

January 6th 2009 the Mobile Press Register had an article about the opening of  the WIND CREEK CASINO in Atmore.

NOTICE in paragraph 12 this statement:

“We have a Class II gaming facility at present, because that is what the law allows,” said Buford Rolin, tribal chairman. “The governor did visit us about eight weeks ago, and admired the hotel. I didn’t push it.”

What follows is the full article:

Press-Register (Mobile, AL)

 January 6, 2009

 ATMORE CASINO OPENS TODAY

         Author:

        CONNIE BAGGETT; Staff Reporter

        Edition: 03

        Section: A

        Page: 01

Estimated printed pages: 3

Article Text:

WIND CREEK ATMORE CASINO OPENS TODAY

CUTBACK IN MISSISSIPPI/4A

By CONNIE BAGGETT

Staff Reporter

 ATMORE – A day before Wind Creek Casino and Hotel was scheduled to open, workers scrambled to put the finishing touches on the towering resort, which represents the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ $240 million wager on its expansion in the gaming industry.

 The resort’s casino and restaurants open today. The hotel is scheduled to open later this month.

 Poarch Creek officials and their PCI Gaming management team described the resort in a presentation to elected officials and media representatives.

 ”Our research shows us that some 8.8 million visitors from Alabama and Florida visited Mississippi casinos in 2007,” said Jay Dorris, PCI Gaming president and chief executive officer. “We just want to invite them to come check our electronic machines, our better facilities, better staff and the better way we will take care of them. We open Jan. 6, but will have a grand opening Jan. 31. We hope things will be going so well we may be able to announce an expansion at that time.”

 Dorris’ prediction was met with enthusiasm as people toured the shiny new building ready for the expected crowds, even as Indian gaming officials in Mississippi announced cutbacks at their operations.

 ”Our performance so far has been stunning,” said David Gehman, tribal councilman.

 He said he voted against borrowing the $150 million to build the complex, but now can see the potential. He said projections show the tribe might be able to pay off the debt in three years instead of five. The struggling economy does not seem to be affecting gaming income for the bingo hall here, he said.

 ”We have heard rumblings of trouble in Philadelphia, Miss. We don’t believe that will happen here because we have a great location along Interstate 65, and we can pull gamers from Pensacola and Mobile.”

 The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians announced Monday that it is cutting operations and eliminating more than 500 jobs at its Golden Moon Hotel and Casino near Philadelphia.

 Although the Wind Creek Casino holds 1,600 electronic bingo games virtually indistinguishable from slot machines, there are no Class III games such as poker, blackjack or roulette.

 ”We have a Class II gaming facility at present, because that is what the law allows,” said Buford Rolin, tribal chairman. “The governor did visit us about eight weeks ago, and admired the hotel. I didn’t push it.”

 Rolin said all it would take to have Class III gaming was a compact or agreement with the governor. “Hopefully in the future we can add those games,” Rolin said. “The not-too-distant future.”

 PCI officials said the main difference between slot machines and electronic bingo machines is slot machines are independent, with the player versus the machine in a game of chance. Bingo machines are linked in groups by computers, so players are competing with each other and the machine in the game of chance. Legal descriptions are still the subject of debate.

 The resort’s location is striking. In the middle of farming country, the hotel tower rises 16 floors high and features more than 230 rooms. The casino and restaurants open at 8 a.m. today, and the hotel will begin taking reservations for the middle of this month.

Chef Stafford DeCambra, described by PCI officials as the “rock star” of the development, said the four restaurants in the casino are ready for business, with staff members still learning and polishing their service skills. It was a trial by fire for most, he said, when 4,000 people invited for a test run Dec. 30 swamped the food outlets, which offer international cuisine, short orders and fine dining.

“We started at 11 a.m. and I was on the grill line,” DeCambra said. “I didn’t leave the line until after 4 p.m. Opening all these at once is scary for a chef, and we are on a learning curve, learning what people like. The goal is to make dining here an experience for everyone.”

 CONNIE BAGGETT/Press-Register

 Electronic bingo machines stand ready for action Monday at the Wind Creek casino in Atmore.

Copyright 2009, Press-Register.  All Rights Reserved.  Used by NewsBank with Permission.

The facility shut down on the heels of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling lifting a court order that temporarily stopped Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal gambling from raiding VictoryLand and Country Crossing in Dothan.

VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor shook hands with employees as they were coming out, and promised to reopen the casino.  Several workers said they weren’t certain what they would do without the pay check or benefits.

Full Report Here

Source: RickyStokesNews.com

Source: Eprisenow.com

{Editors Note} Another example of Bingo Bobs jobs program. Waste taxpayer dollars and kill off more jobs in the process. He is worse than OBAMA in crushing any chance of new jobs in this state.

Only about a quarter of people responding to the poll, conducted by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, said they favor outlawing gambling completely. Seventy-two percent said they support regulating and taxing proceeds from gambling.

The results didn’t impress Gov. Bob Riley, an avowed opponent of gambling.

“Well, I’ve been around long enough to know it all depends on how you frame the question. I think you can get about any answer you want depending on how you ask the question,” Riley said.

Gambling, specifically electronic bingo, has become a dominant issue across the state over the past year and especially over the past month or so as Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling has attempted to stage raids on several casinos and as those casinos have shut down.

Gambling proponents contend casinos employ thousands and could be a source of millions of dollars for ailing state coffers, if they were taxed by the state. Riley contends that the machines on which electronic bingo is played are illegal slot machines and that that the rule of law trumps jobs creation.

In the poll conducted by PARCA, a private government think tank, about 60 percent of respondents said casino gambling supports economic development. The poll found support for taxing and regulating gambling among a cross section of residents.

The poll, conducted Jan. 4-17 with a scientific sample of 529 respondents, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent.

Source: Bham News

{Editors note} WELL DUHHH Ya THINK?
After all that has happened the only truly tangible outcome of this has been that bingo Bob has put over 2,000 people out of work in the parts of the state that have the worst employment already.

The narcisism of this man has NO bounds

The multi-platinum band was the last of 20 to perform at the development more than two weeks ago. The bash accomplished just what officials had hoped. The party pavilion was full with music fans and the bingo pavilion was at capacity or greater.

Thursday, however, there was no party atmosphere at the pavilion. Instead, scores of somber Country Crossing employees filed through the pavilion as workers gathered information to file a mass request for unemployment benefits.

The facility has been shut down since Friday, when officials closed the business and padlocked the doors in anticipation of a raid by Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Sabrina Templeton, who began working for the Houston Economic Development Association (HEDA) as a beverage server since HEDA began hiring workers two weeks before Country Crossing opened on Dec. 1. “You can’t babysit Alabamians. It’s time we got out of our Pampers and grew up.”

Templeton said she usually made around $12.50 per hour in wages and tips working the 11:45 p.m. until 7:45 a.m. shift in the bingo pavilion. The earnings, she said, were more than what she would have made had she taken a job offer to work as a medical assistant prior to accepting the job with HEDA.

She said she doesn’t know how much unemployment she will be able to receive, and she knows she may have to look for other work if Country Crossing remains closed for a long period. But Templeton, who has two young children at home, said she would come back to work at Country Crossing as soon as it opens.

“I love the shift. It allows me to be home with my kids during the day,” Templeton said.

Travis Prince, however, may not be able to wait that long.

Prince works for HEDA as a machine technician. He said the salary allowed him to take his hearing impaired 3-year-old daughter to regular appointments in Birmingham for treatment.

“Plus I have a 9-year-old boy in third grade. He needs school clothes, supplies, all that stuff,” Prince said.

Prince said he moved to Alabama from Florida five years ago, but would move back to Florida soon if Country Crossing was unable to reopen.

“I can’t wait around,” Prince said.

Employees may be eligible for partial or regular unemployment benefits based on the amount of time they have been working in the past 18 months.

Source: Dothan Eagle

“I have been made aware that some of our employees are patronizing Country Crossing and VictoryLand”  began the memorandum, dated Monday, from Chief Jeff Rogers, director of ABC’s Enforcement Division.

The memo was addressed to “all enforcement personnel.”

“As all of you are aware, we are heavily involved in the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling. If you are patronizing these locations, you are a willing participant in what we consider illegal activity,” the memo said.

He wrote that employees were being “ordered” not to visit those locations or any others with similar gambling machines.

VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor described the letter as “very offensive,” but said Thursday he wasn’t surprised to hear that ABC officials were among his customers.

“If you are patronizing (Country Crossing and VictoryLand), you are a willing participant in what we consider an illegal activity,” Rogers wrote in the memo. Read the full document.”We’re a legitimate business, and the honest people who work for the ABC Board … they know we’re a legitimate business,” McGregor said. “There’s absolutely a lot of hypocrisy going on.”

Bob Martin, an ABC attorney, said the memo was meant only as a warning to employees; he would not comment on the hypocrisy claim.

He said he had no “direct knowledge” that employees had visited casinos, and he didn’t want to “hypothesize” on it.

The office of Gov. Bob Riley, which created the gambling task force, declined to comment on the memo.

Riley has led a yearlong battle against machines that look and play much like illegal slots but dole out winnings based on computerized games of bingo.

Government officials disagree on the legality of the bingo machines.

Last week, hundreds of officers attempted raids on two of Alabama’s largest casinos, VictoryLand near Montgomery and Country Crossing near Dothan. The raids were aborted, but both casinos have since closed voluntarily.

Martin said he didn’t know how or if ABC agents were involved in those raids, but he added: “Anytime there’s any operation where they need manpower, our people may be called upon to report for duty.”

VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor described the letter as “very offensive,” but said Thursday he wasn’t surprised to hear that ABC officials were among his customers.The memo dated Monday instructed ABC agents to have “no communication with anyone associated with any of these locations,” and added that agents with family or close friends connected to gambling must notify Rogers in writing.

“I realize that some of you may be ‘friends’ of gaming employees or may personally disagree with the actions of this task force,” the memo said. “We are to follow through with the desires of this administration and faithfully execute our mission(s).”

McGregor said he believes it is “foolish” to try to tell employees who they can talk to or what they can do on their free time.

“Quite honestly, it’s another example of how Riley is using and abusing the power of the governor’s office to carry out a personal vendetta,” he said.

Martin said that ABC leaders have the authority to restrict the off-duty activities of their agents because, like military personnel, they’re on-call 24 hours a day.

“As law enforcement officers, they are held to a higher standard, in terms of who they associate with and what they do on their free time,” Martin said.

Source: The Associated Press
By George Altman
February 05, 2010, 5:00AM