A judge has ordered the gaming authority of the Sault Ste. Maria Tribe of Chippewa Indians to pay damages to investors after failing to follow through on two separate Michigan casino projects.
Judge Joyce Draganchuk of the Ingram County Circuit Court has ordered the tribe to repay $60 million to investors for an unbuilt casino in Huron Township and $28.8 million over an unbuilt casino in Lansing. Additionally, the court ordered the tribe to repay $9 million in loans connected to the two projects, with interest.
The plans, which were opposed by the three Detroit casinos, would have created a casino in a vacant 71,000-square-foot church building in a wooded area of Huron Township and a separate casino in Lansing, both off-reservation properties. The tribe, however, failed in efforts to have the sites placed into trust by the U.S. Department of the Interior, a necessary step for off-reservation casinos.
The two investor groups sued the tribe’s Kewadin Casinos Gaming Authority for breach of casino development contracts that required Kewadin to open temporary casinos on the properties, financed by the investors. According to the lawsuit, the Kewadin authority had promised the land would be placed into trust without difficulty. While the tribe sued Interior and won in the District Court for the District of Columbia, an appeals court reversed the ruling.
The Kewadin authority currently operates five small Michigan casinos. The Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa tribe previously operated Detroit’s Greektown casino, but sold it from bankruptcy in 2008.
