More amateur slapstick from Maryland's snakebit attempt to license and build slots parlors. Not only can't Canadian developer Michael Moldenhauer come up with $19.5 million in earnest money for a Baltimore slots license; he can't/won't pay the vendors who worked on the project. As Scott Calvert reports in today's Sun, folks who worked for Moldenhauer's Baltimore City Entertainment Group have claimed $771,000 of a $3 million deposit Moldenhauer made for work they performed but said they weren't paid for.
Those dunning Moldenhauer include PR queen Sandy Hillman and strategic consultant Michael Cryor, who dropped out of the project last month, telling the Sun's Annie Linskey: "A contentious appeal is not the relationship I want to have with my city and state." Especially if he's not getting paid!
Add to this delays for the Arundel Mills slots operation, the pratfalls of the De Francis family, the bankruptcy of the parent of Laurel Park and Pimilco racetracks and you have set up a casting call for Abott & Costello.