March 14, 2004|By Robert Little and Mike Adams | Robert Little and Mike Adams,SUN NATIONAL STAFF
"The Indian casino world, and what the tribes should be accomplishing around the country vs. what they are - because most of them do not have the Cordish Co. - is like, it's pitiful, it's pathetic," Cordish said. "We're going to do just what we do everywhere else. We're going to deliver what we said; it is going to make this an entirely different place."
New projects
Today, Billie drives around wealthy South Florida neighborhoods in a pickup truck with a sign advertising his chickee-building business. Customers often remark about his fallen celebrity, he says. And they ask to see the hand with the missing finger.
After a two-year suspension, Billie was formally removed from office in March 2003. The sexual harassment suit was dismissed because the alleged events took place on tribal land. The former Seminole chief says he isn't bitter about his fate.
Cordish remains busy as always, working "100-hour weeks" and overseeing new commercial projects in Rochester, N.Y., Atlantic City, N.J., and Louisville, Ky. He says he has a plan for developing casinos in Maryland if the legislature legalizes such gambling, and that he might offer to do it for free.
He predicts the Seminole Hard Rock projects will be among the most impressive and successful on his resume.
"The question is, can we build a better mousetrap?" he said. "You know what? I think we can. And if we do, we'll be rewarded. And anywhere along the line, going back to the beginning, we slip, we'd lose a fortune."
Coming tomorrow
Donald Trump used all his charms to land a casino development deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, but the author of The Art of the Deal abandoned the cause. Then Baltimore's renowned David S. Cordish stepped in with a new proposition.
