By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Intralot is a Greek company that supplies integrated gaming and transaction processing systems, game content and sports betting management, to state-licensed gaming organizations worldwide. The company acts both as a lottery vendor and a lottery operator. It has a presence in 50 countries and a workforce of approximately 5,000 people It is a public listed company in the Athens Stock Exchange. - Source: Wikipedia
The majority subcontractor on the $38 million D.C. Lottery contract is competing for a new game with a different foreign partner in a process that could involve one of his well-connected friends at D.C. Lottery.
The possibility of manipulation of the 2009 D.C. Lottery contract is not the only corruption angle that has drawn the attention of government investigators.
With online gambling off the table for now, D.C. officials are grappling with how to rectify the questionable local business certification of a firm that controls a 51 percent share of the $38 million D.C. Lottery contract.
He's paid up to $300,000 a year. He lives in a $1.3 million house in Northwest, with a Bentley, a Range Rover and a Mercedes in the driveway. Yet renowned lobbyist and power broker David W. Wilmot uses the claim he is "economically disadvantaged" when doing business with the city.
Within weeks of an inspector general's report that criticized a bid by the D.C. Lottery to launch a first-in-the-nation online gambling program, the deal was dead.
The D.C. Council took a major step Tuesday toward reconfiguring the city's $38 million lottery contract when it voted to repeal an online gambling law once urged by its supporters as a pivotal revenue source for the city.
The D.C. Council's top proponent of online gambling through the city's lottery system plans to offer a compromise bill on Tuesday to avoid a complete repeal of the program that was passed into law in 2010.
A D.C. Council committee finally showed its cards in the tortured bid for Internet poker and other games through the city's lottery system — and it's game over.
Odds are slim that the District's first-in-the-nation bid to launch online gambling through the D.C. Lottery will go forward without further review, D.C. Council members say.
The D.C. inspector general testified Thursday that the city's lottery contract should have been rebid because the D.C. Council could not have known that first-in-the-nation Internet gambling was in the cards when it approved the deal with Greek company Intralot in 2009.
D.C. Council member Jack Evans' self-described "catch-up after the fact" hearing to evaluate the D.C.'s first-in-the-nation online gambling proposal was as notable for what did not happen Thursday as for what did.
The D.C. Lottery's planned online gambling program will not be hosted on the city's secure DC-NET Internet system as originally planned, information technology officials said Wednesday.
Despite being accused by a former procurement officer of trying to improperly influence the D.C. Lottery contract, D.C. Council member Jack Evans soon will conduct oversight hearings on the approval process and a controversial online gambling proposal - while also being compelled to answer questions under oath in a civil lawsuit being defended by the city.
A federal judge has compelled Mayor Vincent C. Gray and two council members to testify about a controversial lottery contract awarded in 2008.
Lawyers for the District of Columbia argued in federal court Friday that backroom discussions between elected officials and the city's chief financial officer are privileged and, as a result, they should not have to testify in a civil lawsuit accusing them of improperly steering the D.C. lottery contract.
