DA seeks $75G for a casino attorney
Norfolk prosecutors say the Plainridge Park Casino is driving up the number of criminal cases in their workload so much that they want to assign a casino-specific attorney to handle and track it — with state gaming regulators helping to foot the bill.
In making a request for nearly $75,000 from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s office warns that it has seen a surge in firearm offenses, domestic violence cases and even instances of assaults on police officers at nearby Wrentham District Court “stemming directly” from the Plainville slots parlor that
GAMING
opened in 2015.
The trends are largely anecdotal, Morrissey admitted in a phone interview, saying the extra cash to help cover work for a prosecutor and victim advocates would help free up resources to formally track the data.
But his pitch for the grant from the state’s Community Mitigation Fund was also far more subdued than the application, in which his office said it is seeing “more criminal offenses occurring in and around the facility, and a general increase in criminal activity” because of the flood of new people in the area.
“I can’t tell you that I’m blown away by the amount of cases that are coming through the door. But would I like to know more specifically about what they are? Sure,” Morrissey said.
The pitch from Morrissey’s office is notable given the Gaming Commission’s own reports on crime around the state’s only operating gaming facility.
In December, a commissionconsultant reported that crime was actually down in the communities around the slots parlor since it opened.
“Reviewing the public safety impact has been an important part of our research process and that research has not indicated any significant increase in criminal activity,” said Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for the commission, which is weighing Morrissey’s request as well as others.