The Boston Globe - 08.08.2019

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 The Boston Globe Nation/Region A

the state had hit the jackpot.
“We wanted economic de-
velopment, and we got it. We
wanted a wow factor, and we
got it,” Crosby, 74, said over a
salmon burger at the casino’s
Garden Café.
Since Massachusetts legal-
ized gambling in 2011, perhaps
no one in the state has lived
and breathed casinos with
more gusto than Crosby,
whether it’s been crafting regu-
lations or dealing with larger-
than-life Las Vegas personali-
ties looking to win a lucrative
license.
And among the casinos that
have opened in Massachusetts,
no location was as anticipated
— or as controversial — as En-
core, owned by Wynn Resorts.
Crosby often found himself
in the middle of the many con-
troversies. He had to recuse
himself from the 2014 vote on
whether Wynn Resorts should
get the coveted Greater Boston
license after he attended a pri-
vate party at Suffolk Downs cel-
ebrating opening day at the
horsetrack. At the time, Suffolk
Downs had teamed up with
Mohegan Sun to compete
against Wynn Resorts for the

uLEUNG
Continued from Page A

casino license. Prior to that,

Crosby had to recuse himself

from a review of Everett casino

property after disclosing that

he was a friend and former

business partner of one of the

landowners.

Crosby was in the crosshairs

again last summer over the

commission’s investigation into

Wynn Resorts’ handling of mul-

tiple allegations of sexual mis-

conduct levied against co-

founder Steve Wynn. Wynn

stepped down as CEO in 2018,

but the commission wasn’t sure

the company should keep its

gaming license here. Represen-

tatives for Steve Wynn and Mo-

hegan Sun accused Crosby of

what Crosby described in his

own resignation letter as “pre-

judging the outcome” of the re-

view. Since losing to Wynn Re-

sorts, Mohegan Sun, a tribal ca-

sino in Connecticut, has sought

to overturn the decision and

sued the commission alleging

the licensing process was

flawed.

Crosby, in his resignation

letter, maintained that the pro-

cess had been fair but that he

did not want to become a dis-

traction. Since then, the public

hasn’t heard from the normally

loquacious Crosby. Officially re-

tired, he has helped launch a

nonprofit called the Civic Ac-

tion Project to develop the next

generation of civic leaders.

There is a new gambling

czarina — Governor Charlie

Baker appointed Cathy Judd-

Stein to the post in January.

Wynn Resorts got to keep its li-

cense but under revamped and

tougher conditions that includ-

ed a $35 million fine. Crosby

won’t talk about whether he

would have done anything dif-

ferently with the decision had

he stayed on the commission.

But enough inside baseball.

Back to his Encore visit.

The former gaming chair-

man isn’t much of a gambler

and he didn’t try his luck last

week — not even at the slots.

Instead, he made a beeline to

GameSense, a booth on the

gaming floor that offers tips on

how to gamble responsibly.

Then-governor Deval Pat-

rick picked Crosby in large part

because he’s a policy junkie.

Crosby was dean of the McCor-

mack Graduate School of Policy

and Global Studies at the Uni-

versity of Massachusetts Bos-

ton, after having served as bud-

get chief under Governor Paul

Cellucci and chief of staff under

Acting Governor Jane Swift.

Gaming, for all its flash, is a

wonky business that juggles

regulation and politics with the

dynamics of an ever-changing

market.

Crosby couldn’t help but no-

tice Encore’s “extraordinary

luxury,” but what made the

deepest impression on him was

the transformation of the site, a

long-abandoned Monsanto

chemical plant that was a noto-

rious toxic waste dump. Stand-

ing outside the casino overlook-

ing a cleaned up riverfront,

Crosby marveled at how Wynn

went all-in — spending $2.6 bil-

lion on a gleaming monument

to gambling that rivals the pal-

aces of Las Vegas.

“Where would you ever get

the vision and nerve to imagine

it?” Crosby said as he walked

along a paved path framed by

meticulous flower beds of pink

petunias, gold and orange

marigolds, and orange sunpa-

tiens.

“This is mindboggling,” he

said. “The restoration is fantas-

tic....Thecurvedescalators,

the carousel, Popeye. They’re

Vegas, but the waterfront is

unique.”

That — after GameSense, of

course — is what Crosby called

his favorite part of Encore.

“Look at this place. I am go-

ing to take a picture of this,” he

said as he walked toward the

river’s edge to get a better

glimpse of the flower beds,

trees, and lawn.

Is there something he

doesn’t like? Well, yes, but it’s

minor. He said Encore needs

better signage by the Long

Wharf dock — it was hard for

him to find where to catch the

ferry.

And then there’s the ques-

tion of whether Wynn Resorts

can make a return on its invest-

ment. When the company won

the license in 2014, it planned

to spend only $1.6 billion, not a

billion dollars beyond that.

“It’s got to cause everyone to

pause,” Crosby said. “Now we

all just hold our breath and

hope it works.”

As for his role in shaping the

state’s casino industry, here’s a

bit of self reflection: “Even with

many years of experience in

high level politics and public

life, I underestimated the PR,

political and legal maelstrom

that establishing casinos would

engender. On top of it, I made

my share of mistakes. So how

has it worked out? I would say

so far, so good. But the truth is

we will not know the long-term

cost/benefit trade-offs of desti-

nation resort casinos for years

or even decades.”

Unless you’re a blue heron

living the good life on this new-

ly cleaned-up section of the

Mystic. Crosby could be onto

something: The biggest winner

in Everett might be its river-

front.

Mark Arsenault of the Globe

staff contributed to this article.

Shirley Leung is a Globe

columnist. She can be reached

at [email protected].

Follow her on Twitter @leung.

SHIRLEY LEUNG/GLOBE STAFF

Steve Crosby said of the

casino, “We wanted a wow

factor, and we got it.”

Forex-chiefofgamingcommission,Encoreisa‘holycow’moment

By Richard Fausset
NEW YORK TIMES
A long-running sexual abuse
scandal that has prompted the
Boy Scouts of America to con-
sider bankruptcy flared anew
this week, when a lawsuit filed
in Philadelphia asserted that
there were hundreds more pos-
sible sexual predators associat-
ed with the organization, be-
yond those already listed in its
files.
A man now in his 50s who

brought the lawsuit alleges that

an assistant scoutmaster sexu-

ally abused him in the mid-

1970s, when he was a young

scout in Luzerne County, Pa.,

and that the organization’s

“negligent, willful, wanton,

reckless and tortious acts and

omissions” allowed the abuse to

happen. The lawsuit also accus-

es the Boy Scouts of engaging in

a coverup to hide “the extent of

the pedophilia epidemic within

their organization.”

The plaintiff’s lawyer, Stew-

art J. Eisenberg of Philadelphia,

belongs to an alliance of law-

yers called Abused in Scouting

that formed this year after re-

ports surfaced that the Texas-

based Boy Scouts of America

was considering filing for Chap-

ter 11 bankruptcy protection.

That step would make it more

difficult to pursue legal claims

against the organization and re-

coverdamages.

The lawsuit says that former

scouts across the country have

come forward to identify 350

possible sexual abusers who

were not included in the Boy

Scouts’ confidential files on vol-

unteers who were excluded

from the organization because

of accusations of child sexual

abuse. This year, an expert on

child sexual abuse who had re-

viewed those files testified in

another case that there were

nearly 8,000 people listed in

them.

Some details about those

files, which the Boy Scouts have

kept since the 1920s, have been

public for years. In 2012, an ex-

tensive investigation by The Los

Angeles Times found hundreds

of cases in which accusations

were not reported to law en-

forcement or were kept hidden

from family members.

The lawsuit says the Boy

Scouts should have known that

its list of ineligible volunteers

was flawed and, in some cases,

ineffective. The organization

“was aware that it had ejected

thousands of pedophiles from

its ranks of leadership in local

scout troops and failed to in-

form the scouts and their par-

ents of that fact,” the lawsuit

says.

In a statement released this

week, the Boy Scouts said

“there were instances in our or-

ganization’s history when cases

were not addressed or handled

in a manner consistent with our

commitment to protect scouts,

the values of our organization

and the procedures we have in

place today.”

The civil complaint, filed in

the Court of Common Pleas of

Philadelphia County on Mon-

day, identifies the plaintiff only

by the initials S.D. He asserts in

the complaint that the abuse

began when he was 12 or 13

and continued until he was 17.

Along with the national organi-

zation, the lawsuit names as de-

fendants the local Penn Moun-

tains Council of the Boy Scouts

and the assistant scoutmaster.

The Boy Scouts of America

said in its statement that when

it received information from

the plaintiff’s lawyers about the

350 newly identified possible

abusers, it began an investiga-

tion. It has sent about 120 re-

ports to law enforcement agen-

cies as a result, the organization

said, and was told that addi-

tional information about some

of the cases was needed to fol-

low up on the allegations.

FormerBoyScoutsname350moreabusersinlawsuit

Add accusations

that organization

covered up reports

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