| By Dave Harding, ProgressOhio - Nov 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am EST |
Dan Gilbert, who is helping to bankroll tomorrow’s ballot issue that would allow casino gambling in Ohio, recently likened his past arrest for illegal bookmaking to little more than trading football cards
Gilbert’s characterization angered the now-retired vice cop whose undercover work led to Gilbert’s arrest.
"Mr. Gilbert was part of a serious organized bookmaking ring that threatened some of its victims with violence," said retired detective lieutenant John Fielder, who led the organized crime unit for the Michigan Department of State Police when Gilbert was arrested. On Friday, casino opponents flew him in for a news conference.
The casino measure will appear as Issue 3 on the Ohio ballot and it is the most hotly contested item on the ballot this year. Backers are promising a windfall of jobs and tax revenue to a state in dire need of both but critics say Issue 3 offers false promises and they urge supporters to look no farther that border state Pennsylvania where the new, Three Rivers Casino, isn’t close to meeting expectations.
In the Sunday Plain Dealer, columnist Brent Larkin wrote:
Pittsburgh's beautiful new downtown casino opened the second week in August. To date, the Rivers Casino has been a colossal disappointment. Barely one month after it opened, the Wall Street credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the debt rating of the company that controls it to a dismal B-, saying the casino's revenue performance had been "meaningfully weaker" than expected.
The paper was among just two in Ohio to endorse Issue 3 and has yet to take on Gilbert for standing before its leaders and lying at the City Club debate.
Cleveland’s alternative press has not been so kind.
Roldo Bartimole, the king of the alternative press, has taken Gilbert on directly, and reported in detail on the undercover cop’s decision to step forward.
Polling shows this one too close to call and it is not certain whether Det. Fiedler’s press conference opened Cleveland’s collective eyes to the downside of Dan Gilbert.
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