"It's a good thing the fabled magician David Copperfield will be visiting the Mashantucket Pequots' MGM Grand next month.

Maybe he can help them make Michael Thomas, their disgraced tribal chairman, disappear for good.

The Tribal Council has Thomas in a lockdown, on administrative leave, with what appears to be an understanding that they won't remove him from office now while he won't run for re-election in the fall.

It would be so much easier if Copperfield could make Thomas and his embarrassing criminal past and continuing business dealings with convicted felons just - poof - disappear.

Alas, even with the tenuous promise of Thomas exiting the tribal stage, the Mashantuckets might continue to worry how their jittery lenders, still reeling from Thomas' assertion that the tribe would make good on its stipends to tribal members before paying its debt obligations, will now have to take a closer look at their new leader.

Richard E. Sebastian, the vice chairman who seems to have grabbed the helm of the listing Mashantucket ship of state, has his own curious background that would at least raise eyebrows anywhere else in the regulated casino industry."

Get the Story:
David Collins: Swapping out tribal leaders (The New London Day 9/16)

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