NEW YORK — For years, Donald Trump has boasted that his casinos are free of the taint of organized crime, using this claim to distinguish his gambling ventures from competitors. But Trump’s casinos turn out not to be so squeaky clean.
One of his prime Atlantic City developments, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, relied on a partnership with two investors reputedly linked to the mob, prompting New Jersey regulators to force Trump to buy them out. And he employed a known Asian organized crime figure as a vice president at his Taj Mahal casino for five years, defending the executive against regulators’ attempts to take away his license, according to law enforcement officials.
As the famously brash developer now considers a run for the presidency, this history could complicate his efforts to project an image of a trusted power in the business world. It exposes a seamy underside to Trump’s rise to fortune — one that involved intimate links to unsavory characters.
As voters learn more about such links between Trump and reputed organized crime figures, “it will get more difficult for him,” says John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. “Under that withering examination, his past associations and troubles will all emerge and could make it tough in a Republican primary.”
In his 2000 book, “The America That We Deserve,” released to coincide with an earlier prospective presidential campaign, Trump boasted:
“One thing you can say about Trump, as the holder of a casino gaming license, is that I’m 100 percent clean — something you can’t say with certainty about our current group of presidential candidates.”
Trump has sought to lean on such claims while sometimes intimating that industry competitors are themselves tainted by mob associations — in order to saddle them with restrictions on their casino licenses.
Read More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/28/donald-trump-rolling-snake-eyes_n_854177.html?ir=Business
HuffPost/Baram/ 04/28/2011
Florida Latin Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor
Rolling Snake Eyes: Trump’s First Casino Partners Had Alleged Mob Ties
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