A STREAM OF SWEAR WORDS cascaded around a federal courtroom in Boston on Tuesday as US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office opened its case against three men accused of concealing the involvement of a convicted felon in a deal to sell land in Everett to Wynn Resorts for a $2 billion hotel-casino project.
The profanity was captured on tape as the convicted felon, Charles Lightbody, talked with his pal Darin Bufalino, an organized crime figure who was being held at the state prison in Shirley from 2012 through 2013. In conversations that were repeatedly interrupted with disclaimers that the call was being recorded, Lightbody and Bufalino swapped expletive-laden stories that prosecutors portrayed as incriminating. Unless you had a transcript, many of their conversations were difficult to decipher. But the language, straight out of the Sopranos, suggested the two wise guys were no Boy Scouts.
Lightbody, of Revere, and his two fellow defendants, Dustin DeNunzio of Cambridge and Anthony Gattineri of Winchester, face criminal charges of wire fraud, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. But the case has drawn many bigger players into its orbit, including Wynn Resorts and the casino company’s local representatives – the powerhouse Boston law firm of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo and its lobbying arm, ML Strategies. Paul Feldman, a partner and president of the law firm of David Malm & D’Agostine, is another central figure in the case, although he may not testify.
Wynn Resorts officials insist they didn’t learn of Lightbody’s involvement with the land deal until well into 2013, when investigators working for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission briefed them on Lightbody’s role. But attorneys for the three defendants indicated on Tuesday that Wynn officials knew about Lightbody long before that. What Wynn Resorts knew about Lightbody and when did the company know it is likely to be a central question in the trial, not because Lightbody committed any crime by buying and selling the Everett land but because his involvement was covered up.
When Lightbody’s participation in the land deal was brought to light, the Gaming Commission allowed Wynn to reduce its purchase price for the Everett property from $75 million to $35 million. The price reduction was designed to reduce the profits of the Everett landowners; the amount was based on an appraisal showing what the land would be worth without a casino on it.
The basic outline of the case is well-known. A group of investors in October 2009 bought a 35-acre piece of polluted property in Everett for $8 million. The investors, operating under the name FBT Everett LLC, were thinking about selling the land to Wal-Mart or some other big box retailer. That plan changed when the Legislature approved casino gambling in 2011, and casino operators started knocking on their door. First came the Hard Rock Café and, when a deal with that casino operator failed to materialize, along came Wynn Resorts in late 2012. Wynn agreed to pay FBT Everett $100,000 per month for an option on the property and $75 million to buy it if the company was granted a casino license.
On Dec. 14, 2012, the Boston Business Journal wrote a story suggesting the Everett casino site could be a gamble for Wynn Resorts. One of several problems cited in the story was the previous involvement in the ownership group of a guy named Gary DeCicco, who had been convicted in 2004 of insurance fraud and sentenced to two years of probation. The story suggested DeCicco’s criminal background could be a problem for Wynn since the casino gaming law required gambling regulators to review “the suitability of all partners in interest to the gaming license.”
Although Wynn Resorts merely wanted to buy FBT Everett’s land and had no intention of partnering up with the group on the gaming license, the questions raised by the Boston Business Journal apparently spooked the owners of the land. They were worried that Lightbody’s convictions for assault and battery, identity theft, and other crimes might be interpreted by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in a way that could derail the land sale. Attorneys for Lightbody, DeNunzio, and Gattineri said FBT Everett decided to purchase Lightbody’s 12.5 percent interest in the property for a total of $1.9 million.
But the US Attorney’s office said the three men committed wire fraud by concealing from Wynn and state gambling regulators Lightbody’s continued involvement with the property by backdating documents and lying. “This case is about a scheme to hide the truth, fueled by greed,” said Assistant US Attorney Ted Merritt, in his opening statement.
Gattineri’s attorney, Michael Connolly, said the government’s case hinges on whether the partners in FBT agreed to secretly funnel millions of dollars to Lightbody once the sale with Wynn went through. Connolly said the FBI, egged on by a Dec. 11, 2012, taped phone call between Lightbody and Bufalino suggesting Lightbody would “double-blind” and “triple-blind” his interest in the Everett parcel, had conducted a three-year, “scorched-earth investigation” looking for secret payments to Lightbody.
“What’s the evidence?” Connolly asked the jury. “The evidence, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing.”
In their opening statements, the attorneys representing DeNunzio, Gattineri, and Lightbody conceded their clients often made “stupid mistakes” and lied about events. But the attorneys said their clients were innocent. They often took the same events seized upon by the US Attorney’s office as evidence of wrongdoing and recast them in a different light.
For example, the US Attorney’s office sought to portray DeNunzio as someone trying to conceal Lightbody’s ownership stake in FBT. But Joshua Levy, DeNunzio’s attorney, said his client did nothing to hide Lightbody’s ownership stake. He claimed DeNunzio told Feldman, FBT’s attorney, to inform Mintz Levin, Wynn’s law firm, about Lightbody’s involvement. Levy said Feldman subsequently told Daniel Gaquin, a Mintz Levin real estate attorney, about Lightbody and quoted Gaquin as saying “thank you, thanks for letting me know.”
Levy also said DeNunzio, a graduate of Harvard and MIT, introduced Lightbody to John Tocco, who was working for Wynn Resorts, and said Lightbody could be helpful in getting out the vote in Everett for a referendum on the casino project. Tocco is the son of Stephen Tocco, the president and CEO of ML Strategies, which has helped Wynn Resorts every step of the way in Massachusetts and collected millions in fees along the way. Former governor William Weld has worked with Stephen Tocco on the Wynn account.
Merritt of the US Attorney’s office said that by December 2012 the FBT owners were aware law enforcement officials were scrutinizing them and looking to conceal their actions. He pointed to an email sent by Gattineri to DeNunzio on Dec. 11, 2014, that said “anything that we do that’s hot, we meet in person.”
Gattineri’s attorney, Michael Connolly, said the email merely reflected the way his client preferred to do business. Connolly said his client’s participation in the effort to buy out Lightbody and backdate the documents verifying the purchase had nothing to do with concealment. “This was a legitimate change in business documents that had nothing to do with criminal conduct,” he said.
Feldman, the lawyer for FBT, also figured prominently in the opening statements of the defense attorneys. In a previous court filing, they called Feldman “the single most important and exculpatory witness in the entire case” because he handled all the legal arrangements surrounding FBT’s purchase of Lightbody’s interest in the property. The attorney also said Feldman disclosed Lightbody’s involvement to Wynn’s attorney. Why, they asked, would such a well-known and respected attorney risk his career by trying to cover up Lightbody’s involvement?
It’s unclear whether Feldman will testify at the trial. The US Attorney’s office granted him immunity to testify before the grand jury that heard evidence in the case, but has withheld a grant of immunity for any testimony at the actual trial.
Assistant US Attorney Kristina Barclay on Tuesday introduced into evidence a series of phone calls and evidence suggesting that Lightbody and Bufalino were close, so close that Lightbody would transfer money into Bufalino’s canteen account in prison. Yet Lightbody’s attorney, Charles Rankin, sought to portray his client as a rough-and-tumble guy trying to go legit with an auto body business and some real estate deals. Rankin said Lightbody, who grew up in Revere and graduated from Revere High School, took out a bank loan to purchase his interest in the Everett property.
“Charles Lightbody may be guilty of having a big mouth, of bragging, of lying to [the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau at the Gaming Commission] about when his ownership interest expired, but he was not guilty of defrauding Wynn,” he said.
