By Douglas Holt
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 15, 2003

For the second time in a month, Illinois casino authorities agreed Thursday to postpone efforts to strip Emerald Casino of its license, allowing more time for settlement talks with casino officials accused of misconduct.

The Illinois Gaming Board has sought to revoke the license since 2001, when it concluded Emerald officials lied to regulators and sold casino shares to investors with alleged ties to organized crime.

Adding to the Rosemont-based project's woes, federal authorities disclosed this year that secret shares in the casino had been improperly sold to an executive of a Harwood Heights bank.

But a hearing needed to complete the license revocation had been delayed for more than a year when the company landed in bankruptcy court. In July, a judge cleared the way for the revocation hearing to proceed.

But Thursday, officials abruptly put off restarting the hearings, once billed as an opportunity to make public any evidence of casino wrongdoing and mob ties. A previous hearing start date of July 28 also was put off.

"The Illinois Gaming Board has been in positive discussions with Emerald Casino Inc. and the Illinois attorney general's office," Gaming Board spokesman Gene O'Shea said Thursday.

He said the board did not object to Emerald's request to delay the hearing until Sept. 4.

Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan also had no objections to allowing settlement talks to continue, spokeswoman Melissa Merz said.

In a bankruptcy court brief filed in July, Madigan's office said she will not accept a settlement that allows "wrongdoers to be restored to their status quo--to escape the consequences of their conduct by getting their money back."

Merz said Madigan's position has not changed. Since taking office, she has taken a tougher line than Jim Ryan, her predecessor. Ryan had objected to alleged wrongdoers profiting from the casino project but had agreed to let them get their money back.

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