The process that ultimately saw Wynn Resorts receive a license to build a casino resort in Boston, Massachusetts was a fraud. This is the claim of a competing company, Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, which is seeking $3 billion in compensation from the Las Vegas-based casino giant.

Sterling filed its lawsuit last September, asserting the licensing processing was rife with fraud, cronyism and marred by “a number of improprieties. The lawsuit was recently amended to include complaints that the former chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC), Stephen Crosby, had been compromised due to a “decades-long” friendship that he had with one of the owners of the property that had been purchased by Wynn Resorts for the new complex.

Wynn purchased the 36-acre tract of land from FBT Everett Realty, which was born as a joint venture that includes Paul Lohnes as its majority owner. Lohnes is reportedly a long-time friend of Crosby, who was in charge of the MGC at the time the purchase was made.

Sterling asserts in its lawsuit that Lohnes and Crosby had repeated contact in 2012, coincidentally at the same time Wynn was searching for property for its resort. The lawsuit specifically points out that the two met in May 2012 and that Crosby showed “an interest in brining casino operators to Everett, even though the Everett Site had not yet been marketing before that time, even by its owners, for use as a casino.”