Jim Kruse I hope you were at home when this happened!

Officials shut down casino in early morning raid

By RICK ALM The Kansas City Star

State and local law enforcement agencies early Friday raided and closed the tribal-owned 7th Street Casino in downtown Kansas City, Kan.

Officials said casino employees cooperated with authorities. By late Friday at least two workers had been charged with felony gambling offenses in Wyandotte County District Court.

About a dozen patrons and employees were allowed to leave after identifying themselves.

Among patrons identified in the 6:30 a.m. raid was Kansas City Municipal Court Judge Deborah A. Neal. The judge said she cooperated with police at the scene and would have no other comment. Local authorities said it was unlikely the players would face any charges.

Acting on a search warrant issued by a Wyandotte County district judge, nearly 30 city police officers and agents from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas attorney general's office moved in shortly after 6 a.m., seizing 153 slot machines, casino records and what Kansas City, Kan., Police Capt. Mike Kobe described as “a substantial amount of cash.”

Later in the morning, FBI agents joined the action as casino property was being inventoried as evidence. Authorities cited federal law and court precedents that they said empowered state officials to enter tribal lands to enforce state law violations.

“This is illegal gambling,” Whitney E. Watson, a spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, said at a news conference on the sidewalk in front of the casino, which had been cordoned off by police.

But Jason Hodges, a spokesman for the casino's owner, the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma, said: “Violating a tribe's sovereign ground is a mistake, a big mistake. This will be resolved, but unfortunately not outside the courts.”

Conley Schulte, an Omaha lawyer for the tribe, said an action was filed late Friday in the District of Columbia federal district court challenging the state's action, but that case was being transferred to a Kansas federal court for an expected Monday hearing.

In that transfer order, D.C. District Judge James Robertson suggested that the action of Kansas officials “appears to have been unlawful … because exclusive jurisdiction of gambling on Indian lands is vested in the United States.”

Watson said state lawyers were confident they had legal authority in federal law to move against the casino.

The tribe opened the casino last August in a mobile structure across the street from City Hall after the National Indian Gaming Commission had granted preliminary approval.

Last week, after months of formal review, the federal commission said it had determined that the land did not qualify for tribal gambling activities. The agency gave the tribe a one-week grace period to respond.

The tribe immediately went to court, but on Tuesday it failed to win a restraining order blocking the commission's finding.

In the meantime, Kline demanded that the tribe close the casino within the same one-week time or face state action.

The commission's one-week deadline for the tribe's response apparently expired at the close of business Wednesday.

Commission officials in Washington confirmed earlier this week that the tribe did not submit its response until sometime after 5 p.m. Wednesday, but said that the response was being reviewed anyway.

Commission officials had no comment Friday.

“We're aware of the situation in Kansas, but that is a subject of litigation, so we are not commenting,” said spokeswoman Affie Ellis.

Hodges stressed that the commission had not issued a final order based on its findings of last week and that state officials acted in haste to close the casino.

“I think they're doing what they think is right,” Hodges said of state officials' actions Friday. “But confiscating slot machines is a knee-jerk reaction.”

To have so many state and federal agencies acting independently is “ludicrous,” added Hodges.

The tribe has been in court for almost eight years seeking legitimacy for a casino operation somewhere in Wyandotte County — named for the tribe whose members helped to settle the area in the early 1800s.

The tribe has been headquartered on its own reservation in Oklahoma since the 1850s. It opened the casino on land it bought in 1996 next to a historic tribal cemetery, which the federal commission declared years ago to be tribal reservation land. The state also is in court challenging that decision.

In other pending lawsuits, Kline alleged that the state was not properly consulted before the casino opened, and that the federal agencies allowed the casino to open without adhering to federal environmental and historic preservation review guidelines.

The commission's findings last week left intact the land's status as tribal reservation, but disqualified it for gambling in part because it was so distant from the tribe's main reservation and because the tribe bought the parcel eight years after the federal Indian gambling law took effect in 1988.

The triple-wide trailer casino offered free coffee, vending machine snacks and more than 150 “Class II” electronic games, which are based on bingo odds but play like standard slot machines. Tribes are permitted under federal law to offer Class II games on approved tribal lands without state consent.

Class III gambling, which encompasses traditional slot machines and table games such as craps and blackjack, requires a formal agreement with the state.

Meanwhile, Hal Walker, chief counsel for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., said Friday that he had asked District Attorney Nick Tomasic to determine whether the local government could keep the seized money, sell the slot machines and share the proceeds with the state.

That could happen.

“If we can prove it was used in gambling, we can seize it,” Tomasic said Friday. “We do this all the time in drug cases.”

Typically, the district attorney added, law enforcement agencies are permitted to acquire contraband property only after a judge or jury has determined that illegal activity has occurred.

Officials on Friday refused to disclose any accounting of the cash and other items that were seized.

Assistant District Attorney Jerry Gorman said Friday that two casino supervisors, one male and one female, had been charged with one count each of felony commercial gambling. The two also face one count of possessing gambling devices, a misdemeanor. If convicted, they face up to 23 months in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Authorities declined to identify the employees because they had not been notified of the charges.

Friday's action had the full support of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

In a prepared statement Friday, the governor said: “The gaming operation run by the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma is, and always has been, illegal. Now that the National Indian Gaming Commission has made clear that it agrees, this gaming operation must be shut down. I am pleased that state and local officials have worked together to uphold the law.

“As we debate allowing Kansans to decide for themselves whether and where to allow gaming in Kansas, they should have the confidence that it will be within the scope of the law.”

Wyandotte County reporter Mark Wiebe contributed to this report.

To reach Rick Alm, call

(816) 234-4785 or send e-mail to ralm@kcstar.com.