Louisiana
Money, Influence and Louisiana: the fight over a Cedar Rapids Casino
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – More than 800 miles separate Cedar Rapids and Bossier City, Louisiana. But they both are communities banking on transformation with gaming, and one casino closure in Louisiana could share something with the proposed one in Cedar Rapids: they share the same operator, Peninsula Pacific Entertainment.
When Peninsula Pacific bought DiamondJacks casino in Bossier City, it promised to re-invest in the aging riverboat and accompanying hotel. But instead, DiamondJacks closed during the pandemic and never re-opened; eventually the empty property became a magnet for criminals.
The city leaders and state gaming regulators were enraged.
Ronnie Jones was the head of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board and says he tried to take away DiamondJack’s gaming license since it wasn’t open.
“That week I directed the Attorney General’s office to get me an opinion on what the state of Louisiana needed to do to take his license away from him, because he had violated the terms and the conditions of that license,” said Jones.
DiamondJacks was one of many casinos in the northwest Louisiana region called the Shreveport- Bossier City Metro. DiamondJacks’ operator, Peninsula Pacific, blamed the pandemic’s financial impact for making it impossible to reopen. The same operator, now called Peninsula Pacific Entertainment or P2E, is behind Linn County’s bid for a casino.
Jones described how he learned that Peninsula Pacific wasn’t reopening after the pandemic shutdown. And he takes particular issue with how the founder and chairman, Brent Stevens, communicated with state regulators and the casino’s 349 workers.
“I get a call from a reporter from a TV station in Shreveport, and she goes ‘Chairman Jones. What’s this about Diamond Jack’s not reopening?’ I said, excuse me. She goes yeah, there’s a Facebook post to their employees that they’re closing permanently,” said Jones.
Jones, who led the Louisiana Gaming Board from 2013 to 2020, reached out to KCRG after seeing that Stevens was part of the group looking to open a new casino in Linn County.
“The only thing that I would urge is as a former regulator that they get Brent Stevens before them under oath and ask him the right questions. And I’m not suggesting he’s not deserving of a license. I’m not suggesting that he might not build a beautiful property that’s great for Iowa, but the last year experience that I had with Brent, who I considered a friend as well as a licensee, just raised some issues with me as a regulator. That’s all,” said Jones.
Steve Gray, who has led the investor group for a Cedar Rapids casino for nearly 13 years, does not share Jones’ concerns about Brent Stevens and Peninsula Pacific. Gray researched potential operators and saw the success Peninsula Pacific had running other casinos in Iowa – namely Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Sioux City.
Diamond Jo’s revenue grew 56 percent under Peninsula Pacific’s ownership.
Steve Gray: “I mean who are those people that have a good reputation with the commission that have done a good job, financially that have done a good job with problem gamblers that have really exemplified what the statue really intends for gaming in Iowa and our partners and now P2E that they were then known as The Diamond Jo in Dubuque they, they were just head and above everybody else from third party references.”
Beth Malicki, KCRG-TV9: “Do you have, or have you heard any concerns about Brent Stevens, Peninsula? Any of it?”
Gray: “No, no. Okay. And you know, doing what we do in life. If we were measured by our stumbles, instead of our accomplishments, investors would never invest.”
Malicki: “So, you don’t have concerns about this operator. In fact, you would elevate his performance to say, one of the best.”
Gray: “I, we, continue to believe, so when we pick them, we’d spent about a year understanding how they operated, you know, what would the project look like? How would they operate? Who would they hire? Or what would the culture be in the gaming operation and the surrounding amenities? That was really important to the local investor group. And we became convinced that they were the right people, but the sanity checks that we did with the Racing and Gaming Commission, also, provided us a little comfort… But over the last 12 years, we have really got to know them. So not only do I refer to them as partners, I refer to them as friends. They have done nothing in the last 12 years to make us, even for a second, question them as the right operator. In fact, if anything we are just absolutely thrilled with our choice.”
Those like Gray who’ve been pushing for a casino in Linn County have had to be resilient. They’ve been through two failed efforts to get a license from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission in 2014 and 2017; state lawmakers passing a two-year moratorium in 2022 to pause any new casinos in Iowa; and, now, an organized effort by existing casinos to prevent any new competition.
Gray: “I’m beginning to feel like General Custer felt in [the Battle of] Little Bighorn. There are a lot of different arrows, coming from a lot of different places… But this ‘Iowans for Common Sense’ is unequivocally not grassroots.”
Gray: “It’s 50 percent funded by Riverside, Elite [Casino Resorts], and the other 50 percent by other operators in the state. One thing that I do want to make very clear is that not all of the other operators are participating in this. I mean I happen to have friends that own casinos in the state and they’re not participating. So it’s just a select few people that are financially contributing to this grassroots organization.”
Malicki: “Do you think the arrows and those who are shooting them toward this project are behaving above board?”
Gray: “You know, we’re all competitive. And you know, Beth, my career over the last 40 years, I’ve competed with AT&T, US West, very dominant providers with huge balance sheets. And, by and large, we’ve done pretty well. But we’ve never stooped morally, ethically, and we’ve never even gotten into a gray area, you know, pun intended. I mean, we’ve tried to conduct ourselves above board. We don’t have the water park that we were promised.”
That water park reference is from 2013. That’s when Linn County voters were deciding if they’d support gaming and the Chief Executive Officer of Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, Dan Kehl, promised to build a water park if people in Cedar Rapids voted ‘No.’ The county voted ‘yes,’ so no water park, even though the community never got a casino.
Now Kehl is trying again to prevent competition from encroaching on his property in Washington County. Kehl employs about 700 people and his revenues at Riverside have grown 43.5 percent in five years with gaming revenue reaching $129 million in fiscal year 2024.
We asked for an interview with Kehl and did not receive a response. But he did speak to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission in November of 2024 at a public forum.
“We are opposed to the Cedar Rapids casino license because of cannibalization in a saturated market will significantly hurt our Iowa company,” Kehl said to the Commission.
Steve Gray and other supporters of Cedar Crossing say Kehl is pulling every lever available to stop a casino. From claiming the Linn County ballot language from 2021 is not clear enough to allow a casino to urging lawmakers to extend a moratorium to ban any new licenses.
Gray says Kehl is the main driver of a campaign called “Iowans for Common Sense.” That campaign is running commercials and gathering signatures to oppose any new casinos, but especially one in Cedar Rapids.
“Now with this petition, that was put forward as a grassroots organization, and then when we saw this email and how it’s being organized by the Iowa Gaming Association and pushed out to all the other operators and asking for their financial participation. Yeah, that’s just not right,” said Gray.
Gray provided a copy of what he says is an email from the Iowa Gaming Association. That is the trade organization supporting the state’s existing 19 commercial casinos. Iowa has four tribal casinos, but they aren’t part of the Iowa Gaming Association and don’t need a license to operate from the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.
The email from the Iowa Gaming Association is urging the state’s casinos to join Riverside in stopping Cedar Crossing before it starts.
Back in Louisiana, the place where DiamondJacks once sat empty, is transforming. The new casino will have a new owner and open on February 13. It will bring back hundreds of jobs and invest $270 million to build a new casino.
Diamond Jacks serves as a worst case scenario of what can happen if a casino goes bust, which is exactly what Iowa’s regulators want to avoid. And while the Shreveport – Bossier City market has a population of about 100 thousand more people than the Cedar Rapids Metro, that region alone has six casinos. Cedar Rapids is hoping for one.
And those behind the project are sure they have the right plan, with the right operator, the only question is if it’s the right time.
“This is round three to your question. Will there be a Round four? Or a round 5? Probably. But you know we’re all doing this because of what we think could be very beneficial to our home county and our hometown,” said Gray.
What one casino backer calls cannibalization, another calls competition. And the casino poised to lose the most if Cedar Crossing receives a license is Riverside.
Damon John is the General Manager at Riverside. He spoke to KCRG in early January of 2025.
“If you look at a nearly 30 percent reduction on our revenues, extrapolating that on our staff of nearly 700 employees here, I mean we’re talking 200 employees, 200 jobs on the line,” said John.
Gray acknowledges the hit Riverside would take.
“So if 30 percent, 40 percent, even 50 percent of the revenues that they enjoy come from Linn County, why hasn’t Linn County participated in the nonprofit dollars that are being distributed? It’s just disproportionate. I mean, they commit more to their nonprofit in a year than Linn County has received in the last 15,” said Gray.
Riverside is the third most visited casino in Iowa, and fourth in terms of revenue. In Fiscal Year 2024, its adjusted gross revenue reached nearly $130 million, a growth of 47 percent in a decade. And many of the Riverside patrons come from Linn County.
“Riverside’s investors have done very well in that project. They would continue to do well; it’s not going to render that facility bankrupt or insolvent. Would it be smaller? Yes. But you know what? Let’s compete. I mean create a better product as I’ve always done and let’s just compete,” said Gray.
If Cedar Crossing gets a license, Linn County is poised to get more than $6 million a year to give to local nonprofits. State law requires casinos to give three percent of gaming revenue to nonprofits. Cedar Crossing says it will give nearly triple that amount and commit eight percent to nonprofits.
In Washington County, it’s clear the impact of those nonprofit dollars. The Washington County Riverboat Foundation holds the gaming license for the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort.
Since 2006, the Foundation has given out grants totaling $58 million, with the vast majority staying in Washington County. Like the more than half a million-dollar grant for Kalona, in Washington County, from the casino-funded Foundation, and $630 thousand for an expansion on the Wellman Public Library.
The mayor of Cedar Falls, Danny Laudick, spoke to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission to oppose a Cedar Rapids Casino.
“This decision not only impacts one city or one county, but all of eastern Iowa, including the small communities that rely on the amenities and services that we’re able to provide as a region because of the support of the existing casinos,” said Laudick.
Parts of Iowa that don’t have casinos also receive a portion of the gaming revenues. But it’s a pittance compared to what counties with casinos get.
In 2022, the Washington County Riverboat Foundation gave the Washington County YMCA $3 million for its new pool.
That same year, Linn County received a total of $37,000 in grants from gaming revenue. The YMCA in Cedar Rapids received a grant funded through gaming revenue for $10,000 – the largest amount awarded in Linn County.
The state regulators who award licenses commissioned two studies to determine the impact Cedar Crossing would have. On the positive side, one study notes the “Cedar Crossing Casino and Entertainment Center is attractively designed and well located, such that we expect it will be successful in drawing large numbers of Iowa gamblers.”
The studies touted the 300 new jobs, the $6.8 million in added tax revenue for the state and $13.7 million in local tax revenue.
On the negative side, roughly half of Cedar Crossings’ revenue would come from cannibalization – taking money from other casinos.
The largest impact would be on Riverside Casino and Golf Resort. The Marquette Advisors Market Analysis shows Riverside would lose 26 percent of its annual revenue, starting in fiscal year 2029 with a new Cedar Rapids casino. That comes to $34 million Riverside would lose a year.
Isle of Capri in Waterloo is poised to lose 10 percent of its revenue to cannibalization, or $8.8 million a year. And tribal casino, Meskwaki in Tama, would lose 11 percent or $14.1 million.
“If Cedar Crossing were to go through we’re talking $1.32 million dollars on an annual basis from our commitment to the Riverboat Foundation that would be evaporated,” said Damon.
The money that gaming pumps into the economy, the government and nonprofits is why those outside Linn County want to stop a casino as much as those within it want to have one.
Copyright 2025 KCRG. All rights reserved.
Advocates for death row inmates in Louisiana are praising a decision this month by the U.S. Supreme Court that barred Alabama from carrying out its latest scheduled execution by nitrogen gas, while Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill panned the outcome as the work of a “rogue judge.”
The unsigned 6-3 decision in the case of Alabama double murderer Jeffery Lee denied Alabama’s emergency request to lift a lower court ban on killing him with nitrogen gas. For now it places executions by nitrogen gas on hold in Alabama, the first state to use the method on death row prisoners. Alabama has put seven prisoners to death using the method since 2024.
The court declined to spell out its rationale for pausing the Alabama execution, leaving uncertain the impact on Louisiana, the only other state to complete an execution by nitrogen gas. Louisiana falls under a different federal circuit.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall responded to the high court’s decision by asking the Alabama Supreme Court to let the state execute Lee by lethal injection instead. Marshall’s office did not respond to questions about whether or how Alabama intends to defend its use of nitrogen hypoxia at this point.
But Murrill downplayed the impact on executions in Louisiana. The Republican attorney general, who has pressed to restart Louisiana’s execution chamber in earnest, did not respond when asked how the decisions could impact the state’s future use of nitrogen gas.
“The United States Supreme Court has allowed it, and there are procedural explanations for the vote in the Alabama case,” Murrill said in a statement.
“Alabama, like Louisiana and other states, wants to carry out criminal sentences and deliver long-delayed justice that was promised to victims and their families in these heinous crimes,” she added. “So the pivot in this case to another method simply signals that Alabama does not intend to allow anti-death penalty activists to delay the execution.”
Advocates for inmates on death row hope the legal developments serve as more than a speed bump for the handful of states that have authorized nitrogen gas executions.
Lee’s case involved some of the same experts from a challenge last year to Louisiana’s first execution in 15 years, when the state used nitrogen gas in March 2025 to kill Jessie Hoffman for the 1996 rape and murder of Mary “Molly” Elliott.
In Hoffman’s case, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court denied an application to stay his execution. Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma also have authorized executions by nitrogen gas but have not used it.
Capital attorney Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel of the New Orleans-based Promise of Justice Initiative said the lower courts’ reasoning in Lee’s case applies just as well here.
“Louisiana’s protocol for nitrogen gassing is a copycat of Alabama’s, so the factual findings of the district court and the Eleventh Circuit should apply to Louisiana with full force,” Kappel said in a statement.
“And unlike the federal Constitution, Louisiana’s Constitution goes further, explicitly banning torture and providing stronger safeguards against cruel, unusual, or excessive punishment.”
Murrill has pressed local courts to clear more death row inmates for execution. No others have taken place since Hoffman, though the Legislature has set tight new deadlines to quicken the post-conviction review process for condemned prisoners. Louisiana now has about 56 prisoners on death row.
Does nitrogen gas cause ‘needless suffering?’
In Alabama, Lee was convicted of a shotgun double killing during a 1998 robbery of a pawn shop. A jury settled on life in prison, but a judge overrode the decision with a death sentence, in a practice later outlawed.
U.S. District Judge Emily Marks, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump, at first rejected Lee’s challenge to the nitrogen gas death under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.
After a trial, Marks ruled that Alabama’s nitrogen gas protocol didn’t cause “needless suffering,” though she found it caused one to three minutes of “severe air hunger and corresponding emotional distress, anxiety, physiological stress, and physical discomfort.”
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded differently, saying “the overall suffering described by the district court, which lasts for one to three minutes, presents a substantial risk of serious harm over and above death itself.”
The appeals court sent the case back to Marks, who then decided that Lee’s chosen alternative — a firing squad — while not approved by Alabama, was “feasible, readily implemented, and significantly reduces the substantial risk of serious harm posed by the Protocol.”
Marks issued a permanent injunction that the appeals court upheld, reasoning that if it didn’t, the state could moot the case by killing Lee. Alabama then asked the Supreme Court to step in. Granting Lee’s challenge would be “unprecedented in American history,” the state claimed, expanding “the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the denial of the state’s petition.
Nitrogen gas vs. firing squad vs. other methods
The U.S. Supreme Court has a long history of staying out of challenges over methods of state executions. Lee’s was the first involving nitrogen gas where the justices were asked to suspend a permanent injunction issued by a lower court long enough for Alabama to kill him.
Before then, the high court had allowed eight executions by nitrogen hypoxia to go forward.
One legal scholar argued that Louisiana “just may think it’s not worth it” to pursue more nitrogen gas executions after Alabama’s response to the recent court ruling.
“The litigation in Alabama has set a road map for attorneys to follow if it goes all the way up to the Supreme Court. It’s a pretty good yellow brick road in terms of the cost, the controversy, the chaos that’s involved in dealing with such a very challenging and difficult method of execution,” said Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno.
In a recent paper, Denno argued that the U.S. has entered a new era of “crueler, sloppier, and more reckless” executions, with some states tapping older techniques like the firing squad and others approving nitrogen gas, a new one.
The last execution using nitrogen gas came last October in Alabama, when condemned inmate Anthony Boyd appeared to take longer to die than any others using the method. The Associated Press reported Boyd shaking and heaving for more than 15 minutes before the curtain closed on the execution chamber.
Louisiana lawmakers approved nitrogen gas along with the electric chair as options in 2024 legislation after the state struggled for years with access to lethal injection drugs. The choice of methods under the law is left to the state corrections secretary.
Supreme Court ‘shadow docket’ leaves reasoning murky
Some legal observers cautioned that the court may have denied Alabama’s plea for reasons not entirely related to Lee’s fate.
Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University professor who has studied the court’s growing use of its “shadow docket” to settle legal issues through emergency decisions, argued in an amicus brief that the court shouldn’t let that docket be used to clear a path for Lee’s execution.
John Blume, a Cornell University law professor, said the court’s actions on the shadow docket are notoriously hard to decipher.
“So, it could mean that the refusal to lift the (injunction) stay means a majority thinks the District Court and the Court of Appeals got it right. It could also mean that they might hear the case on the merits and vacating the stay would moot the case,” Blume said.
“Or it could just mean that they did not see what has (been) until this Court came along the difficult standard for a stay being satisfied.”
Blume said the court has granted the vast majority of emergency relief requests from orders staying executions.
“But most of those were preliminary injunctions,” he added. “This was a permanent one.”
Lee’s legal team with the Arnold & Porter firm in Washington, D.C. praised the decision while noting that it didn’t clip Alabama’s right to kill him, only how.
“We are asking only that the execution be carried out by a constitutional method,” the firm said, adding that the high court ruling “ensures the opportunity for a full review of the trial and appellate record before any execution proceeds.”
Miss Louisiana preliminaries closed Friday with Miss Louisiana Port City sweeping health and fitness and evening wear, and a newcomer earning another night of preliminary wins.
Shelby Bordelon, Miss Louisiana Port City, won health and fitness and evening wear preliminaries. Miss Natchitoches City of Lights Eva Delatte won the talent preliminary.
Miss Heart of Pilot Lauryn Vernon won both the newcomer health and fitness and the newcomer evening wear awards, earning $500 in scholarships. Kelly Lohman, Miss Avoyelles Arts & Music Festival, received the $500 newcomer preliminary talent scholarship.
Other scholarships that were presented Friday night included:
- Women in Business ($1,000 Scholarship): Miss Louisiana Tech University De’Ahmya Whaley
- Women in Education ($1,000 Scholarship): Miss Southeastern Louisiana University Miranda Sensat
- Women in Health Sciences ($1,000 Scholarship): Miss Ruston Emma Calhoun
- Women in Marketing ($1,000): Miss Louisiana Tech University De’Ahmya Whaley
- Women in Mass Communication ($1,000 Scholarship): Miss Louisiana Port City Shelby Bordelon
- STEAM ($500): Miss Ruston Emma Calhoun, Miss Cane River Olivia Grace Dyrek, Miss Monroe Jalia Shepherd
- Champions of Faith ($1,000): Miss Louisiana Christian University Destanee Stewart
- Glenda Moss Memorial Passion for Dance Scholarship ($1,000): Miss Krewe of the Twin Cities Anna Claire Lemoine
- Origin Bank Leadership & Culture ($1,000): Miss Avoyelles Arts & Music Festival Kelly Lohman
- American Heart Association − Raised over $1,000: Miss CENLA Lauragrace Rader, Miss Louisiana Port City Shelby Bordelon, Miss Louisiana Tech University De’Ahmya Whaley
- AHA Winner − Raised over $5,000: Miss Union Parish Hannah Brotherton
- Sharon Turrentine Health Living ($1,000): Miss University of Louisiana Monroe Katherine McCullars
- Community Service 1st Runner Up: Miss Avoyelles Arts & Music Festival Kelly Lohman
Who are the Miss Louisiana contestants?
The Jazz Group consists of:
- Miss Slidell Maddie McMahan
- Miss Spirit of Fasching Caroline Pierce
- Miss Minden Sadie Brown
- Miss Belle of the Bayou Jansen McDonald
- Miss Spirit of the Red Elyce Thomas
- Miss Ouachita Parish Jasmine Henson
- Miss Bossier City Adreaunna Scott
- Miss Heart of Pilot Lauryn Vernon
- Miss Red River City Courtney Patterson
- Miss Lincoln Parish Sarah Cook
- Miss Twin Cities Addison Jackson
- Miss Southeastern Louisiana University Miranda Sensat
- Miss Union Parish Hannah Brotherton
- Miss University of Louisiana at Monroe Katherine McCullars
- Miss Louisiana Port City Shelby Bordelon
The Blues Group consists of:
- Miss Avoyelles Arts & Music Festival Kelly Lohman
- Miss Northwestern Lady of the Bracelet Nilah Pollard
- Miss Pride of Monroe Shelby Weaver
- Miss Krewe of the Twin Cities Anna Claire Lemoine
- Miss Louisiana Christian University Destanee Stewart
- Miss Louisiana Bayou Makenzie Tillery
- Miss Ruston Emma Calhoun
- Miss Natchitoches Parish Hannah Reeder
- Miss Louisiana Stockshow Jacie Brent
- Miss Cane River Olivia Grace Dyrek
- Miss Natchitoches City of Lights Eva Delatte
- Miss Monroe Jalia Shepherd
- Miss CENLA Lauragrace Rader
- Miss Louisiana Tech University De’Ahmya Wiley
Follow Ian Robinson on Twitter @_irobinsonand on Facebook at https://bit.ly/3vln0w1.
That pageant feeds into the Miss Louisiana pageant, which is part of the Miss America system. The winner of Miss Louisiana Saturday night will move on to the Miss America pageant.
Addison’s pageant platform is encouraging girls to build confidence in themselves — Confidence to Career, Jackson said.
“She competed last night for the preliminary in talent and on stage question and will compete tonight in beauty and fitness,” Jackson said.
On Saturday at the beginning of the pageant, the field will be cut to 11 contestants, and then the top five.
“One of the top five will get a crown,” Jackson said.
The preliminary competitions and the pageant will be streamed on MissLouisiana.com and the Saturday pageant will be broadcast live on KNOE-TV.
“They let me see her for five minutes yesterday,” she said. “This is the experience of a lifetime. She is making friendships and relationships that will last a lifetime. We are so proud of her. Addison is such a sweet girl.”
She is the youngest of three sisters, Allison and Anna Claire Jackson.
Angela said her husband, Craig Jackson, is particularly excited and proud of all three of his daughters.
“He’s a great girl dad,” she said. “They think he hung the moon, and he did.”
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