A superior court temporarily halted a Lottery Commission hearing on the future of Andy Sanborn’s Concord Casino, after lawyers for Sanborn raised due process concerns.
In an injunction issued Thursday, Merrimack County Superior Court enjoined the commission from holding the hearing, which had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday.
Sanborn, a former Republican state senator and owner of the Concord Casino, was accused by the state’s attorney general in late August of fraudulently applying for $844,000 in COVID relief funds and spending them in part on several luxury cars for himself and his wife. As a casino, Sanborn’s business was not eligible for the loans, but he applied for the loan using a misleading name, the Attorney General’s Office has alleged.
The allegations, which emerged from a 15-month joint investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and the Lottery Commission, prompted the commission to revoke Sanborn’s charitable gaming license at the end of August. Sanborn had appealed that decision; Friday’s hearing was meant to be an administrative hearing on that appeal.
But in a memorandum to the superior court, Sanborn’s attorneys, Mark Knights and Zachary Hafer, argued that the Lottery Commission had violated Sanborn’s due process rights throughout their investigation, and said that Lottery Commission Chair Debra Douglas should not be overseeing the appeals process. Instead, they said an impartial adjudicator should hear Sanborn’s appeal.
Sanborn’s attorneys have also said the Lottery Commission did not give sufficient time for Sanborn to mount a defense, telling the court that the commission had initially given only 15 days for Sanborn to prepare for the administrative hearing. And they said the investigation had been a “single-minded pursuit of (Sanborn’s) defeat.”
“There is a line that divides vigorous advocacy from abusing the coercive power of the state and the agency here crossed it,” the memorandum reads.
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Court orders delay of Sanborn casino license hearing after due process concerns
