Maryland Live! Casino at Arundel Mills will premiere table games beginning Thursday this week.

MARYLAND LIVE! CASINO AND POWER PLANT DEVELOPER
PUT $116 MILLION INTO OFFSHORE TRUST ACCOUNTS
TO (LEGALLY) AVOID PAYING  U.S. FEDERAL TAXES

Table games to begin at Maryland Live! this Thursday
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
The Baltimore-based Cordish Companies, whose slot machines and table games at casinos such as Maryland Live! regularly entice gamblers, as well as tourists and other citizens, to bet their hard-earned cash against odds stacked heavily against them, put $116 million worth of assets into four offshore trust accounts — havens to keep from paying U.S. taxes — and got bilked out of $12 million as a result of the tax-dodging investments.

Cordish is scheduled to inaugurate table games — blackjack, craps and roulette — at Maryland Live! in Arundel Mills this week, beginning at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Poker at the Hanover, Md. facility will begin soon thereafter in a room separate from the rest of the casino. At present the company, which builds and runs urban retail and entertainment venues, has only one property in its gambling portfolio: Maryland Live!

As reported by the Washington Post, based on information obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Cordish Family was enticed by New York financial planner Brian Callahan and an attorney for Portcullis TrustNet, an offshore investment company which operates mostly in Asia and the Cook Islands, to invest their money through trusts set up in the South Pacific nation.

According to the ICIJ — which is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit news organization — the Cordishes created four trusts in the Cook Islands through TrustNet and then placed $116 million worth of assets in them. As required by law, they disclosed the transfer to the Internal Revenue Service, which permits American citizens to legally transfer assets offshore in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes, on condition that the transfers are reported to the IRS.

SWINDLED THE FAMILY OUT OF $12 MILLION

However Callahan, with whom the Cordishes invested some of the money, failed to protect their investment and instead swindled the family out of nearly $12 million, according to the documents, which were previously confidential, obtained by ICIJ and reported over the weekend by the Post, as well as a civil lawsuit brought by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The ICIJ/Washington Post investigation details how tax havens around the world have in many cases become sanctuaries for individuals seeking to conceal their activities from investigators and investors.

Callahan allegedly raised $90 million from about 45 investors who reported losing nearly $68 million.

Last May the SEC sued Callahan, charging him with diverting investor money to help pay for his home in a fashionable Long Island enclave and to underwrite an oceanfront real estate project for his brother in Montauk, N.Y.

Both the Cordish Family and Callahan’s attorney have declined to comment.

Pratt Street's Power Plant is the headquarters of the Cordish Companies in downtown Balti- more, which developed the property. The former ESPN Zone is now site of Phillips Seafood.

In addition to Maryland Live! Cordish developed Baltimore’s Power Plant downtown on Pratt St. and Power Plant Live! on Market Place, about a block north of the Inner Harbor, as well as similarly themed venues in such places as Kansas City and Tampa and Hollywood, Fla. and is involved in real estate development throughout the United States and beyond.

The company’s first casino venture occurred 12 years ago and involved a project in conjunction with the Seminole Indian tribe of Florida. However Maryland Live! is the first casino to be owned and operated by Cordish outright.

The Seminole casino project, which was completed in 2004, became suspect when it was revealed that the tribe had structured its payments to Cordish using tax-exempt bonds to finance construction. After being forced to refinance the project a year later with taxable bonds, the tribe ended its 10-year contract with Cordish.

The Cordish Cos. did not have an ownership stake in any of their previous gambling ventures, and speculation is high that if a sixth Maryland casino is built at Prince George’s County’s National Harbor, Cordish will divest itself of Maryland Live.

SHUT DOWN KANSAS CITY TROLLEY

Last month Cordish drew flack for allegedly causing the shutdown of Kansas City’s celebrated trolley system which transported patrons and increased business for KC’s nightlife scene, especially its Power & Light District, which is operated by Cordish along with an affiliate.

By eliminating discounts to KC Strip patrons, Cordish effectively caused the trolley, which regularly transported more than 15,000 bar and restaurant patrons per year, to shut down.

Headed by David S. Cordish as chairman, the Cordish Cos.’ family involvement includes his three sons, Jonathan, Blake and Reed, all of whom are Baltimore natives.

David Cordish’s grandfather established the business over a century ago and was joined by David’s father, Paul, a prominent Baltimore attorney and former member of the Maryland House of Delegates who died in 2003 at age 93. In 1968 David founded the real estate division of the company, which now has regional offices and managers throughout the United States.

Most recently, the company has expressed interest in purchasing the Baltimore Sun, whose owner, the Tribune Company, just out of bankruptcy, has indicated it intends to sell.

Cordish caused a stir not long ago by showing up unexpectedly and uninvited at a farewell party for one of The Sun‘s most prominent reporters in recent years, who left the Baltimore paper to take a job in Boston with Bloomberg News.
 
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
TO READ THE WASHINGTON POST STORY INVOLVING THE CORDISH BILKING, CLICK HERE …and be sure to watch the animated video on how to create an offshore account to dodge your U.S. taxes.
 
Editor’s note:  VoB deeply appreciates the “imitation” of our nonexclusive Cordish swindle story by the local website Baltimore Brew and thanks that publication for its “sincerest form of flattery.”