Developer sues gaming company over Catskills casino

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000 | 9:02 a.m.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, Catskill Development is seeking $6.3 billion from Park Place Entertainment, accusing the company of conspiring to scuttle a deal between Catskill and the St. Regis Mohawk Indian nation to put a casino at Monticello Raceway.

The suit says Park Place and the Mohawks met in April, right after Catskill and the tribe had won federal approval for a casino at the track.

The suit accuses Park Place of first conspiring with Donald Trump to block Indian casinos in New York state then persuading the Mohawks to work with the New Jersey-based gaming company to build a casino at nearby Kutsher's Country Club.

A Park Place spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Legal wrangling has become the norm as New York state wrestles with whether - and where - to build casinos. A suit making it harder for New York state to approve an Indian casino can be heard, an appeals court ruled last week, and a splinter group of Mohawks filed another suit in tribal court that claims Park Place hurt the tribe when it lured the Mohawks away from Catskill.

Besides the casinos at the raceway and Kutsher's, there are at least three other proposals being discussed in the state: A Cayuga/Catskill Development casino at the raceway and two Seneca-Cayuga casinos in Mamakating, Sullivan County.

The Mohawks currently operate gaming halls near the Canadian border and the Oneida Indian nation has Turning Stone Casino in Verona in central New York.

Approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs could take more than a year.