We have a similar situation at Greenetrack where the sheriff and district attorney have warned of violence if Greenetrack is raided. The clear implication is that officials may not be willing or able protect the task force and state troopers from local citizens who may get violent.

So, on the one hand you have Governor Bob Riley who believes gambling laws are being broken and that neither the state attorney general nor local officials in the two counties will enforce the law. On the other hand, those officials assert there are no violations and that the governor has no constitutional power to intervene.

It’s a standoff the likes of which we have not seen in Alabama in a very long time. Historian Wayne Flynt told me it is similar to what happened when federal and state agents tried to enforce moonshine laws and when the Confederacy tried to draft soldiers into the army.  In some counties local officials stood with their local citizens against the forces of the state.

What do you think will happen next? How do you think it should be resolved?

Clarification on an earlier post:

Victoryland owner Milton McGregor asked for a clarification on the closing of the gaming center at the facility in Macon County.  He says the computers being upgraded are not those that operate the electronic bingo machines. He says they are part of the “point of sale” system for transactions throughout the complex including the hotel, lounges and restaurants.   

As for the bingo machine, McGregor insists that all his machines have already been made compliant with an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last year that set out the legal definition of bingo.  He says the machines have been certified by Gaming Laboratories International.

The Governor’s Illegal Gambling Task Force is set to submit its response to Victoryland’s filing yesterday as to why a circuit court’s restraining order stopping a raid on Victoryland should be upheld.

White says the legal brouhaha brought on by the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling is bogus.

“They know Victoryland is legal…. they understand the only way to come in and take the equipment is for them to act in an illegal manner,” White says.

White’s comments come ahead of a 5pm deadline with the Alabama Supreme Court to file briefs concerning the government’s appeal of Friday’s temporary restraining order that blocked a state raid of Victoryland. The task force attorneys must respond by 5pm tomorrow.

White also points beyond the legal battle where many observers give them a better chance at success… the legislature.

“Unless we get a statewide regulation of gaming you are going to have a situation where the citizens of Alabama get no revenue, no benefit,” he says.

“Its really like a law school exam,” former federal magistrate John Carroll says.

“Is there probable cause to believe these machines violate the law.”

The current dean of Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law says “we’re in this very, very interesting situation where we have all these different ordinances and all these different authorities and government is trying to shut down gambling operations and the courts are in the middle of it.”

While the Victoryland case goes before the state supreme court, Houston county’s Country Crossing focuses on a request before a federal judge today. Add to the confusion in Jefferson county, where an ordinance for the city of Midfield starts today allowing electronic bingo. The cash-strapped city hopes to bring in as much as $150,000 monthly in revenue from the ordinance.

Watch the full interview with White and Judge Carroll here.

Rick Journey

Here in the WSFA 12 Newsroom, we got the first hint that something was up at Victoryland/Quincy’s 777 early on the evening of Thursday January 29th.  A raid on the state’s largest bingo operation?  Nah.  The Illegal Gambling Task Force had its Supreme Court test case in Lowndes County without taking on Milton McGregor and his attorneys….and a carefully crafted local constitutional amendment saying his bingo is legal.  But the Task Force also had a new, aggressive, hard-nosed, veteran prosecutor – John Tyson.

In the words of Gomer Pyle: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

Dozens of State Trooper cars arrived en masse in the middle of the night, ordering patrons to cash out and get out.  But that’s about as far as the raid got.  McGregor was a step ahead of the Task Force.  He was armed with a restraining order which stopped the Troopers dead in their tracks…for now.  Back to Macon County in a moment.

About 120 miles to the south in Houston County, agents moved in on the Country Crossing entertainment center and it’s new bingo pavilion.  They were turned away there, too.  Not by a court order, but some logging chain and a few padlocks around the entrances to the building.  The owners new the Task Force was coming and shut down before the cops could rush the place.  Ronnie Gilley’s lawyers told him it would take a search warrant for the agents to go inside…and they didn’t have one.  Foiled again.

But not so fast.

Within hours of being turned away at the door, Task Force Commander John Tyson was back before the Alabama Supreme Court asking for them to dissolve the restraining order and let the raid begin.  But by midday and into the afternoon, no word from the Court.  Then late in the day, word that the Court had told McGregor’s lawyers to give them all the reasons why the Task Force shouldn’t raid the place…no later than 5 p.m. Monday, February 1st. The Court gave the Task Force until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, February 2nd to answer Victoryland’s filing. 

The Court is expected to have its decision as early as Wednesday, February 3rd. 

So what are the odds the nine justices will turn away the raid?  If you base your answer on their recent decisions regarding electronic bingo, my money’s on the Task Force.  The key element here is the Cornerstone case….the company that built the bingo operation in Whitehall in Lowndes County. State agents shut Whitehall down last year.  The Task Force had the element of surprise on its side back then.  Employees were caught completely off guard as the agents hurriedly ran into the building.  Many of the officers had their weapons drawn….leaving unsuspecting custodians, office workers and security people to do little more than raise their hands and do as they were told.

It was the Cornerstone case that resulted in the Court defining bingo in Alabama.  The justices decided the game is played on a car with a grid of five rows intersecting with five columns…numbers are called one at a time…just like the game you played as a kid. 

The likelihood of a raid at Victoryland increased with a new Alabama Supreme Court ruling released the day of the aborted raids.  In that case, the Court ruled that electronic bingo approved by the Asheville City Council in 2008 violated state law.  The sheriff in St. Clair County had resisted efforts to open bingo operations and had called the governor for help in defeating the plan.  Today, the Court put another legal stake in the heart of electronic bingo with this decision.

What makes you think it will be any different in Macon County?

Before we back the moving vans up to Victoryland’s front door and start loading up the bingo machines, it should be noted that the local constitutional amendment that authorized electronic bingo in Macon County is believed to be more finely crafted than some of the others.  At least one lawyer we talked with says that may be a factor.

Meanwhile in Montgomery…

With the attempted raid, the icy relations between Governor Bob Riley and his one-time friend Attorney General Troy King took a turn for the worse.  The AG politely send a written warning to the governor to consider the consequences of his actions.  The governor fired back that King appeared to be more concerned about the gambling bosses and changing the law…than enforcing what’s on the books. (You can read both their epistles on wsfa.com)

So what’s next?

Anybody’s bet! But right now, I think the money in Vegas would be on the Task Force….but don’t ever count out anybody like Milton McGregor who has hundreds of millions of dollars on the line.

Who is your money on? 

Illegal Gambling Task Force Commander, John Tyson spoke to reporters this morning about the attempted raids at Victoryland and Country Crossing.  Click here to watch WSFA 12 News coverage of  his news conference.

Milton McGregor’s response to Illegal Gambling Task Force raid on Victoryland in Macon County:

_______________________

SHORTER, AL (WSFA) – Statement from Victoryland’s president Milton McGregor on Governor Riley’s choice to raid the entertainment center.

It is important for Alabamians to know that Bob Riley is committed to blocking them from having the right to vote on the taxation and regulation of electronic bingo. The people of Alabama deserve this right, but Bob Riley, David Barber and the Mississippi Indian casinos oppose this fundamental right to let the people vote.

Knowing that David Barber took the position as Riley’s first commander of the so-called Anti-Gambling Task Force, made negative statements about gambling, and actually went to Indian casinos in Mississippi to gamble, I made the decision to monitor Barber’s activities to show my fellow Alabamians the hypocrisy involved in the Riley-Barber scheme.

That monitoring was successful in exposing to the people of Alabama the hypocrisy of Bob Riley and David Barber on this issue. As a lifelong resident of Alabama, I can assure you that if there is one thing no Alabamian can stand, it’s a hypocrite. When this information came to light Barber had no choice but to resign.

Riley’s next choice for commander of the anti-gambling task force scheme is someone just as deeply involved in gambling and just as hypocritical. Like Barber, John Tyson talked about the evils of gambling and pointed out that he had not gambled in 20 or so years. What he did not say was that he solicited and accepted substantial contributions from gambling interests including Indian gambling interests when he ran for Attorney General. Once again, hypocrisy has been exposed.

After his two hand-picked anti-gambling commanders were exposed for their hypocrisy and ties to gambling interests, Bob Riley is attempting to change the subject or confuse the issue by insinuating that some in the legal gaming industry are threatening him. As a result, I feel it is necessary to make my position clear to the media and the public. I am not in the business of monitoring people. However, due to the disgusting hypocrisy of Riley and Barber on this issue I wanted to confirm what I knew to be the truth: David Barber was saying one thing when it came to gambling and doing the opposite. I, nor anyone else I know in the legal gaming business in Alabama, is involved in monitoring the governor. To suggest in any way that Governor Riley needs added security due to “threats” from the gaming industry in Alabama is an effort to divert attention away from the fact that his connection to the Mississippi Indian casinos has been exposed and his credibility on this issue has been destroyed.

As I said at the beginning of this statement, the people of Alabama deserve the right to vote up or down on the issue of electronic bingo that is taxed and regulated. We legally have electronic bingo at four non-Indian locations and three Indian locations in Alabama. I call on the governor to end the hypocrisy, stop trying to use smokescreens to divert the public from the real issue, and support letting the people vote.

Here is our web story on the raid by the governor’s Illegal Gambling Task Force:

SHORTER & DOTHAN, AL (WSFA) - Governor Riley’s anti-gambling task force organized gambling raids on two big entertainment centers in South Alabama early Friday morning.

State troopers moved into Victoryland gaming center and demanded that all non-employees collect their winnings and exit the facility.

Our news reporter Bethany Wales was able to speak with a couple of gamers who were asked to leave the premises. Their responses were:

“It was scary. I don’t know what’s going on. I got out.”

“Victoryland has been around for a lot of years, and it has helped Macon county out.”

Victoryland workers are expected to report to work as usual.

Wales said the atmosphere was filled with anticipation as if something was about to happen. About a dozen moving trucks moved in front of the premises, but later parked in the nearby parking lot.

She said the attorney for Victoryland, Fred Gray, and the chief of the anti-gambling task force, John Tyson, have been in a meeting with a judge all morning. Victoryland managed to get a temporary restraining order signed against the task force, but state troopers still remain inside the center.

Governor Bob Riley and the president of Victoryland, Milton McGregor, have been at odds all week. McGregor hired a private investigator to follow the former chief of the governor’s task force.

The former chief, David Barber, resigned after his reported winnings at a Mississippi casino.

The scene is much calmer at Country Crossing. The building was chained and locked around 12:00 o’clock this morning.

State troopers are still waiting outside the facility for orders to raid.

Months ago, the Supreme Court ruled that “the definition of bingo is a game that is played with cards and numbers called out individually.” Given that definition, Governor Riley said it was a go to raid gaming centers.

WSFA 12 News will keep you updated on further developing details.