The ruling handed down by the Alabama Supreme Court on March 31 will not be appealed by VictoryLand’s legal team; instead, they will look to either federal court or to the United States Supreme Court for relief.
In regard to the justices ruling, casino owner Milton McGregor said that no matter what was filed by his legal team “they had their agenda,” as reported by WTVM. McGregor said the justices were corrupt and the ruling was political. He also accused former Alabama Governor Bob Riley of buying the court.
Before leaving office, an anti-gambling task force was created by Riley and VictoryLand was shut down in 2010. Shortly after, word came of Riley’s connections to the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi and resurfaced in a 2006 U.S Senate Committee. McGregor said, “The Riley Supreme Court is corrupt. There are members that should be investigated and removed.” McGregor believes a $25 million transfer of funds to the judiciary before leaving office ties the justices to Riley.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy was appointed by the Alabama Supreme Court to preside over the bench trial involving VictoryLand and the Attorney General’s Office. Shashy’s ruling was overturned and the high court found that the raid conducted on the casino’s electronic bingo hall by the State of Alabama was within the law. The court found that the application of an equal protection ruling in the case by Shashy was in error. The Alabama Supreme Court also disagreed with Shashy’s assessment that when Macon County voters passed a bingo referendum in 2003 they intended to approve electronic bingo. Two previous rulings were made by Alabama’s high court that gave the impression its ruling would not be in favor of the casino on the appellate level.
In the meantime, larger casinos with restaurants and hotels have been built by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians; something offered by VictoryLand in 2013. McGregor said, “It makes my blood pressure go up about 100 points because it’s wrong.” He added, “That’s one of the nicest hotels in the Southeast, and just so you know, we clean it every week, although no one is staying there because of our situation.”
McGregor plans to reopen this summer, despite the recent order. He’ll reopen with around 1,000 employees and a few hundred bingo machines. It was confirmed by McGregor that deals had been made to lease electronic bingo machines from multiple vendors, but the names of those companies were not disclosed.