Republican presidential candidate speaks at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 2016. Photo: Donald Trump

New York

Donald Trump tried to bully his way into New York tribe's casino bid

Monday, April 18, 2016

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tried to intimidate his way into an off-reservation casino project in New York, The Middletown Times Herald-Record reports.

The paper talked to developers involved in the project at the Monticello Raceway in the Catskills. They said Trump threatened to shut them down unless they brought him on board.

“He said, ‘You won’t do this without me,'" Robert Berman told the paper.

When the developers refused to cave in, Trump went after the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. He financed a shady advertising campaign that painted the reservation as a den of corruption, drugs and crime.

"Are these the new neighbors we want?" one ad stated, the paper reported.

Trump was fined $250,000 for the ads, which he failed to disclose to the state's lobbying commission. While he was forced to make an apology, the tribe's project was derailed and casino projects in the Catskills have yet to get off the ground for more than a decade.

Get the Story:
Trump's time in mid-Hudson: From cadet to casinos (The Middletown Times Herald-Record 4/16)