Wednesday, April 1, 1998 | 8:39 a.m.
At the Tuesday-night meeting, Paul Jones, executive director of the Christian Commission of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, said attempts to infiltrate Mississippi's gaming industry by organized crime show that state regulators have an ineffective licensing process.
Jones said the PEER Committee, a legislative watchdog agency, issued a report that said the state's Gaming Commission was taking more of an economic development role toward gaming.
Chuck Patton, deputy director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, said critics of the agency need to look at its track record in keeping unscrupulous elements out of the gaming market.
"I have not seen a specific instance cited where the commission failed to properly regulate the industry because of some relationship or improper relationship with the industry." Patton said.
"We rule with a pretty iron fist. We're very careful who we let in here in Mississippi."
Jones said he had one example of lax regulatory efforts. He said state officials held meetings to discuss Minnesota-based Spectrum Communications' plan to build a casino on the Gulf Coast but had no idea the company had ties to organized crime.
"We found out that you had moved the meeting from Jackson down to one of the casinos...I think because you thought Baptists weren't going to come into a casino," Jones said.
"The end result was that you decided that it was enough public pressure that you weren't going to do this (license Spectrum)."
More than 100 boxes of documents were seized from International Gaming Management Inc., the parent company of Spectrum, in July 1994.
Federal agents had been investigating IGM for corporate securities fraud and the illegal transportation of gaming machines. The seized documents led to bribery and tax fraud charges against the head of an Indian community and a slot machine dealer.
"I don't believe that there was one vote to license Spectrum Gaming throughout the application process," Patton said. "On the advice of the attorney general's office, we have not talked about people's individual backgrounds."
Jim Ingram, director of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, told panelists the Gaming Commission is doing a better job of regulating gaming than any other state that has the industry.
"Mississippi has been outstanding. They do a good job of monitoring gaming in the state. They (organized crime) will come in a heartbeat...but we do not have it."
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