Cash Payments To Mass, Erwin, Hefner Stopped After Publicity, Gambling Company Owner Testifies

Muskogee (By Tony Thornton/The Oklahoman) ~ A southeast Oklahoma gambling machine owner instructed his general manager to stop paying cash to three legislators in 2005 amid newspaper reports detailing how the businessman benefited from state taxpayer money, jurors in a corruption trial heard today.

Mike Stokes, who was the top employee of Indian Nation Entertainment, said cash payments were common until that point to then-state Reps. Mike Mass, Randall Erwin and Jerry Hefner.

Company owner Steve Phipps described the legislators as "investors" in the company, Stokes recalled.
Their payments came from cash that the United Keetoowah Band Casino in Tahlequah routinely delivered to Indian Nation Entertainment as the company's share of money from machines the casino leased.

In late January 2005, The Oklahoman published a story tying Phipps to then-state Sen. Gene Stipe on another venture, a McAlester dog food plant that was built on land Stipe sold at an inflated price using taxpayer money.

A few months later, Phipps ordered the payments to the legislators stopped "until things cooled down," Stokes said.

Read Thornton's entire story at http://www.newsok.com/.

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