Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2014 9:48:54 GMT -5
This may belong in the history section, but with all the attention being paid to the "non-racing" people running NYRA these days, I thought it would be interesting to see what how the "racing people" ran NYRA. This resulted in a two or three year oversight by a federal court, along with disturbing signs about the oversight being posted all over the buildings at Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga.
It was also one of several scandals that caused the NYRA board to be restructured.
GOOD BET FEDS READY TO INDICT EX-NYRAERS
BY John Marzulli , Joe Mahoney / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS / Saturday, December 6, 2003, 12:00 AM
Several former New York Racing Association employees are expected to be hit with federal indictments next Thursday, even as NYRA itself escapes a criminal conviction, law enforcement sources said yesterday. NYRA would be indicted, but under a seldom-used arrangement called a "deferred prosecution," it would not be convicted in return for paying a multimillion-dollar fine and reorganizing its management, sources said. That way, it can continue to run the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga tracks. Sources said federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are zeroing in on several former NYRA officials, including Kenneth Noe, NYRA's retired chairman, who now lives in Florida. Noe, who could not immediately be reached for comment last night, is the biggest racing name in the feds' stable of targets, the sources said. One former NYRA employee, Vince Hogan, said he fears he'll be among those who will be hit with charges. "I would guess they're aiming at me," Hogan, NYRA's former mutuel department director, told the Daily News yesterday. He said he was involved in no wrongdoing, but he concludes he'll be indicted because he "was the director when all those clerks were arrested.
" Five former NYRA pari-mutuel tellers have pleaded guilty to state corruption charges, and 16 other ex-clerks have been convicted of federal tax violations for taking cash loans from betting drawers. In a lengthy critique of the NYRA issued in June, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer criticized NYRA for putting up with "teller misconduct."
" Ironically, Hogan was quoted in that report as telling Spitzer's investigators that NYRA spurned his requests to hire more supervisors to monitor clerks. Denis McInerney, the Manhattan lawyer retained by NYRA in the federal probe, declined to comment last night.
www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/good-bet-feds-ready-indict-ex-nyraers-article-1.528290
And here's another article (I won't post the whole thing, it's very long) that goes into more detail about the scandal-ridden NYRA board that the present one essentially replaced:
www.lipulse.com/trends/article/rackets-nyra
Rackets: NYRA (June 2007)
What do you get when you cross an upstate socialite, an international casino boss, forty-five thousand horses, three thoroughbred racetracks, a kaput and federally indicted quasi-state racing authority and about $2.1 billion?
The collective status of Saratoga, Aqueduct and Belmont racetrack franchises—as complicated and as nuanced, multi-dimensional and, well, sexy as the constantly matriculating cast of characters jockeying for a position at the gate of what will no doubt become racing’s most historic franchise deal. Sure, there’s the fact that New York’s rich racing culture is on the block—hopefully for the better—but the resonant issues go so far as affecting economies upstate and downstate by touching on everything inside racing and wagering (betting, horse breeding, racing employment) to outside it (hay farming, hospitality, convention business, concert entertainment and outlet shopping).
After years of deliberation first by former Governor George Pataki, his specially designed committee, former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, and now Governor Spitzer, his new committee and newly installed Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, not to mention various ripples throughout the state, the legislature will respond this month to the Governor’s recommendation for who should win the franchise for the three racetracks. There are four consortium groups wagering their spots, and while it’s still anyone’s race*, certain circumstances make for hedging our bets.
Of all the machinery in place to overcome the misappropriation and good old-fashioned scandal brought to NY racing by New York Racing Association (NYRA), the group has yet to be jettisoned from its comfortable position of holding the franchise for the tracks. Given the extent to which theft, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and just about every conceivable money related crime, went on, it is incomprehensible that NYRA is even a player in thoroughbred racing. Then again, the lack of controls governing the franchisee makes for little more than Swiss cheese regulation at best. As stated in Spitzer’s 2003 Examination of Employee Misconduct at the New York Racing Association Inc., and Management’s Response, “To understand how crimes are committed (at the tracks), it is necessary to understand how bets are made and processed, and what happens to the money at different stages.”
That NYRA board's malfeasance almost resulted in the three tracks being sold to either Stronach or CDI, and we know how that would have turned out. I'd much rather have a management group that has a few hiccups along the way (both real and imaginary) than a bunch of crooks who are out only for themselves!
