The City of Boston has filed a lawsuit against Wynn Resort’s proposed $1.7 billion Everett casino stating that a portion of the land acquired to build the casino belonged to Charles Lightbody, a convicted felon. The city alleges that Wynn representatives knew that the land they were acquiring belonged to Lightbody, a claim that Wynn resorts denies.

The City states that Lightbody was a known felon who has ties to the mob and with Wynn acquiring the waterfront property, Lightbody would stand to profit from the real estate deal. The City has filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts gaming commission stating that the commission had not done its research properly and ended up overlooking the fact that the property was owned by Lightbody and hence should not have sanctioned Wynn’s casino license application.

The City has pulled up interviews with 5 individuals who based on their comments suggestion that Wynn Resorts had prior knowledge that the property being purchased was owned by Lightbody. One of these interviews is with former state secretary of economic affairs, Stephen Tocco who Wynn hired as a political consultant. The interview recorded is between Tocco and Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria capturing a conversation where Tocco tells the mayor that Wynn will not proceed with the land acquisition if there were any concerns about the land being owned by a criminal. The mayor specifically asks Tocco if the criminal being referred to was Lightbody.

The city legal brief states that “A fair and reasonable inference to be drawn from Tocco’s testimony is that Mayor DeMaria knew that Lightbody was an owner of the former Monsanto Chemical Site and a convicted felon, which he communicated directly to Tocco, a long-term, authorized representative of Wynn.”

The city of Boston states that gaming commission investigators “consciously omitted” revealing that they had interviewed DeMaria and Tocco as part of the detailed background verification into the key individuals involved in the mega casino-resort casino project. This particular testimony was also not recorded in the administrative record raising a lot of suspicions.

The land in question belonged to Dustin DeNunzio, Anthony Gattineri and Charles Lightbody. Massachusetts casino law does not allow criminals to profit from gambling establishments and hence federal wire fraud charges were filed against all three, as DeNunzio and Gattineri have been accused of concealing the fact that Lightbody would benefit from this multi-million dollar deal.

Wynn Resorts is also facing opposition from state attorney general Maura Healey who has asked the Massachusetts Department of Transportation regulators to carefully consider a traffic analysis report submitted by Wynn Resorts. Healey alleges that the analysis was conducted by a firm hired by Wynn Resorts and questions the accuracy of the report. Healy has asked the state to think twice about issuing an environmental permit to Wynn and has requested transportation secretary Stephanie Pollack to commission an independent traffic analysis study to determine whether Wynn Resorts should be eligible for an environmental permit.