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Report Links Minister to Casino Involvement

Posted on October 24th, 2010

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A report was recently conducted by the state inspector general on the nature of the competition on the installation of slot machines in the Aqueduct racetrack. The report was released Thursday, and has placed state senators in a bad light, as it claims that their support of the Aqueduct Entertainment Group has some malicious motives. The report mentioned several officials but one name stands out from the list—Rev. Al Sharpton. His inclusion in the report though was limitted only to being mentioned in a footnote and was not accused of any shady deeds regarding the issue. The report criticized the inolvement of the people in the installation of video slot machines. The said persons were, according to the report, backing Aqueduct Entertainment Group, one of the bidders for the project.

Rev. Sharpton’s involvement in the whole mess was restricted to only being mentioned on page 98 of the report, which was 308 pages long. The report states, “Individual members of the A.E.G. team also apparently believed that contributions to entities associated with the Rev. Al Sharpton had, in some fashion, advocated for A.E.G.” The day after the report came out, Mr. Sharpton granted an interview. The reverend, who runs a nonprofit group called the National Action Network, denied any claims that he had thrown his support on the project, and that his support brought in additional contributions, in exchange for contributions that entities involved with Aqueduct had given to his organization. According to the report, people or organizations with ties to Aqueduct Entertainment have contributed more or less $100,000 to the National Action Network in the past year alone.

According to Mr. Sharpton though, the donations were given to his organization during the fund raising event that his group held yearly every fall. Sharpton also claimed that these contributions by the Aqueduct people should not be singled out, as there were so many other organizations that contributed to NAN. He added, “They were trying to establish they were going to work in the community,” he said. He explained that he did not point out any bidder for their support because he was under the belief that they all had good intentions to what they did. He noted, “None of these groups asked me to talk to the governor for them,” he said. “No one asked us to lobby for them for money. Everybody donated and donated for years. If we did support someone and they were a contributor of ours, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that.”

Investigators then asked Sharpton why an email was sent from one member of Aqueduct Entertainment to another saying that he lobbied for the governor on behalf of Aqueduct. Mr. Sharpton answered that he had no idea where the member got that from. He does not know where the member got the impression that he lobbied for Aqueduct, although he added that the National Action Network had never decided to throw support to any group in the running for the racino bidding. The investigators indeed did not find any evidence that Sharpton did any lobbying for Aqueduct Entertainment, or for any racino bidder for that matter. For his part, state Governor David A. Paterson testified Sharpton did not lobby for Aqueduct Entertainment. Moreover, any move from Sharpton would have been impossible. This may be attributed to the fact that Rev. Floyd H. Flake, a minister for the Queens borough and is a minor partner of Aqueduct, is not someone Rev. Sharpton saw eye to eye at all. The governor commented, “If Flake is on any side, you can be assured Sharpton will be on another.”

Mr. Sharpton said that it is not his behavior to support a billion-dollar project of someone on the other side just because of contributions made to his organization. He brought home the point by saying, “I’ve been accused of many things. Stupid ain’t one of them.” Another mention of Sharpton in the report may prove to be the most controversial. The report stated that on January 28, Sharpton was spotted in a meeting with heads of Aqueduct Entertainment in the ultra-exclusive, members-only Grand Havana Room in Manhattan. Sharpton said it was only a coincidence that he was there and those people were there too, and he does not recall any meeting occuring.