This, after all, was Massachusetts, where Puritans first landed on Plymouth Rock, not some seedy back-alley canton like New Jersey or Nevada. “He knew politics,” says former state Senate President Stan Rosenberg, “and he had a very solid reputation for integrity.”įrom the start, Crosby’s mandate as MGC chair had been clear: Build a multibillion-dollar casino industry free of the faintest whiff of criminality or corruption. In 2011, after signing a law that essentially created a local casino industry, then-Governor Deval Patrick promptly appointed Crosby as chairman of the newly formed gaming commission. Over time, he earned a reputation as an honest pragmatist respected on both sides of the political aisle. A centrist Republican and longtime public servant, he climbed his way to becoming state budget chief and then a dean at UMass Boston. Now, charges of incompetence, favoritism, and outright rule-breaking echoed throughout the state’s corridors of power.Ĭrosby’s rise to prominence had been slow yet impressive. Ever since, Crosby and his commission had been under siege for granting Wynn a casino license in the first place. It started when Steve Wynn, the billionaire septuagenarian whom Crosby’s commission had hand-selected to build a five-star casino on the banks of the Mystic River, was accused of sexual misconduct. On a gray rainy day last September, Massachusetts Gaming Commission chairman Steve Crosby sat down to write his resignation letter, already deeply mired in scandal. Ethan Miller/Getty (building) Bloomberg/getty (Wynn).
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