Elections board fines proponents of casino plan

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Organizers of an effort to bring a video lottery casino to the nation's capital were fined $622,880 Friday for circulating petitions riddled with "improprieties and irregularities," according to city regulators.

The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics fined the Citizens Committee for the D.C. Video Lottery Terminal Initiative and its former officers Pedro Alfonso, Vickey Wilcher and Margaret Gentry. They proposed a ballot measure to build a $510 million, 14 acre casino complex in Northeast Washington. The facility would have included 3,500 video lottery terminals along with a hotel, stores and restaurants about three miles northeast of the U.S. Capitol.

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