Gulfside Casino Partnership petitioned Chancellor Dewayne Thomas in September to seal records that were part of its application for a Mississippi Tourism Sales Tax rebate. Gulfside sued MDA and the Kingfish (oui, c'est moi) on September 10 after this website asked for copies of all rebate applications submitted to MDA. Judge Thomas granted the protective order on September 11.
JJ sent a request to MDA in August for copies of all applications submitted to the agency under the tourism sales tax rebate program. Jim Hood lawyer Royce Cole (assigned to MDA) sent a notice to Gulfside so it could have the opportunity to seek a protective order if it did not want any proprietary information or trade secrets released.
Gulfside argued it needed a protective order as it wanted to prevent competitors from obtaining financial information about the Island View project. Gulfside applied for the rebate on April 13, 2015. MDA approved the application on April 28. MDA estimated Gulfside would be eligible for a rebate of $24,221,221.
Gulfside asked the court to seal tax ID numbers, percentage of ownership, financial information, job creation projections, attendance projections, business plan, timetable for project, tax returns, financial statements, marketing plan, and amount of revenue subject to the sales tax for first ten years. Gulfside said such information would provide an unfair advantage to its competitors .
Judge Thomas granted an order but it is impossible to state what exactly is in the order as the order is literally unreadable (see order posted below.).
Kingfish note: What is egregious is the fact that the Kingfish was never noticed on this lawsuit. This correspondent found out about the existence of the lawsuit last Thursday. Gulfside attorney Amanda Alexander claimed in her petition that she did not have my address so her client did not serve notice upon me. You read that correctly: Gulfside sued the Kingfish yet never provided notice of the petition. Judge Thomas actually issued the order without providing any opportunity or notice to this party.
What Ms. Alexander does not state is that my public records request that was provided to her by MDA had my phone number and email address. Ms. Alexander made no effort to contact me or provide notice of the lawsuit filed against me. It is the opinion of this website that Ms. Alexander perpetuated a fraud upon the court and it is disappointing that Judge Thomas did not hold her to a higher standard.
Of course, this website has had similar dealings before with Judge Thomas. It is Judge Thomas who refused to provide a hearing date when JJ went to court to obtain a copy of the settlement agreement between Hinds County and Motorola. It is Judge Thomas had a conflict as the attorney for Hinds County was Precious Martin when that action was filed. He and Mr. Martin were co-counsel on the Microsoft case and Mr. Martin's mother-in-law, Chancellor Patricia Wise, had yet to distribute the proceeds of the settlement. JJ was forced to file a motion to recuse after Judge Thomas sat on the case for six months. It is interesting that Judge Thomas violates the law by not hearing that case yet immediately granted an order to Gulfside when asked to do so. Some parties are apparently more equal than others in his courtroom. Earlier post.
Here is another interesting fact. Guess who has the tourism contract for MDA? Josh Gregory and his company, Frontier Strategies. Guess who is the registered lobbyist for Gulfside? Josh Gregory.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Gulfside Partnership Casino/Island View sues Kingfish
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11 comments:
The Mississippi Judicial System has a bad habit of issuing orders without notification. I can attest to this personally.
Is it time to ramp up another set of lights and shine them on the Judicial Review Board?
Perhaps the attorney's involved ought to be brought before the MS Bar?
I would venture to guess the abuse of "no notification" is much broader than this instance suggests.
This type of behavior only serves to undermine justice within the MS legal system and stains the reputation of the professionals who embody the practice of law in Mississippi.
Kingfish, this sounds only like the beginning of a great story. Keep fighting the good fight and don't let up on these people. Keep doing your open records request. What kind of freedom of information do we have in this country when simply asking a question leads to a lawsuit? Where there is smoke, there is fire....
Going to the MS Bar will get you nothing. That is lawyers taking care of lawyers. What are most all judges......lawyers!
The reputation of a large portion of the professionals that practice law in Mississippi has LOOOOOONG been stained.
I will refrain from posting the name of the ambulance chasing attorney that sent me, unsolicited, an offer to sue doctors, hospitals and who know who all else after he read my infant daughters obituary in the paper. This has been quite some time ago but I will tell you that attorney's ads are all over the television these days. I found his offer in my mailbox when we came home from her funeral.
I sent a letter to the MS Bar along with a copy of the letter I received from the attorney and what I got from the bar was a form letter stating that it was not against the law or any legal code for an attorney to do just what was done.
Scum sucking bottom feeders are what most of them are.
Where are all the attorney's claiming their professional piety? Please take the time, for those of you not used to the internet, to search "piety" and reference the second definition provided by the great Google.
Repost your comment without the F word in the title, please.
Ohh sounds like KF just landed himself a plaintiff slot in an abuse of process law suit!
All you "legal experts" are a bunch of idiots with no absolutely no understanding of the statutory process and procedures applicable here. If [redacted] wants to challenge the confidential status of the information subject to the protective order, he or she can have at it. [Redacted] has not been prejudiced. The Public Access to Public Records Act required a protective order be obtained no later than September 21st, or any confidentiality objection would have been waived. All the protective order does is maintain the status quo. So, again, if [redacted] truly believes they have a right to have the confidential financial information, they should focus on the reasons why they say the information is not, in fact, confidential and protected and quit whining about a lack of "notice" which did them absolutely no harm.
Actually you are the damned idiot. I was named as a defendant. I had a right to be noticed. Period.
RE: 1:29 PM Got to love an attorney who thinks they know what they are talking about - again, such professionalism. I'm going to assume THIS example is why they are failing to respond to this thread, they know they cannot defend themselves.
Actually, The Ramey Agency has the Tourism contract from MDA. Frontier did have it before them, but lost it in the last RFP a couple of years ago.
12:20, you are wrong. Godwin Group has it and if you look at the signature page of the contract, Frontier was a co-signatory of the contract.
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