 Let us know when we're start to stream. I'll get a go right now. Good to go. Thank you, good morning. Today is Tuesday, May 9th, 2023. And this is an adjudicatory hearing for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission relative to the suitability of Jeffrey Christ as an individual qualifier to MGM Resource International will refer to it as MGM, which is the parent company of the Region B Gaming Licensee Blue Tire for a Development LLC, MGM Spring Deal. My name is Kathy Judd-Stein and I'm the Chair of the Commission. And I'm joined today by my colleagues, commissioners, Eileen O'Brien, Brad Hill-Nakisha Skinner, and Jordan Mainer. The entire commission will preside over the hearing in decision of this matter. And this hearing will be conducted in accordance with 205-CMR-101.01, the Informal Fair Hearing Rules outlined in 801-CMR-1.02 and Chapter 30A of the General Laws. I'd also like to notify everyone that this proceeding is being recorded. A notice of hearing dated May 2nd, 2023 was issued to the parties. The notice identifies the issues that this hearing is intended to address. Specifically, the commission will focus its review on whether the facts presented constitute a clear and convincing evidence that the suitability standards set out in General Law, Chapter 23K, sections 12 and 16 and 205-CMR-1.15.01, subsection one have been met. There are two parties before us today and each are represented by legal counsel. I will ask them, Ms. Franks, and then Mr. Nozzle, please identify yourself and your teams and advise the commission as to whom everyone represents as applicable. Let's start with Ms. Franks, good morning. Thank you, chair and commissioners and good morning, everyone. My name is Deandra Franks and I am IEV Enforcement Counsel. Also present today for the IEV is Senior Enforcement Counsel Kathleen Kramer, Sergeant David Collette of the Massachusetts State Police and Financial Investigations Chief Monica Chang. Thank you. And Mr. Nozzle, good morning, Jed. Good morning, chair, how are you? Good morning, members of the commission. Jed Nozzle on behalf of Jeffrey Christ and his capacity as a qualifier for Blue Tar Free Development with me today also is Gus Kim, Vice President Northeast Region for MGM Resorts. Good morning, Gus. So thank you all. At the conclusion of my opening comments, this proceeding will commence with opening remarks. Each party will be offered an opportunity to make a statement though it is not required. After opening statements, we will move to the presentation of the evidence in this matter. The IEV will be called upon to present its findings as described in the investigative report. Any commissioner may ask a question of anybody presenting information at any point during or following the presentation. At the conclusion of the IEV's presentation, Mr. Christ, through council, will be afforded an opportunity to ask questions of any individual who presented information on behalf of the IEV relative to any matter addressed in the investigative report, investigation report or to which he or she spoke. At the conclusion of the IEV's presentation, Mr. Christ will be given the same opportunity to make presentation. He may call any witnesses and present any other evidence he desires. Mission has directed the notice of hearing that at a minimum, Mr. Christ be available. It called upon to testify at this hearing. And I see Mr. Christ here. Thank you so much. Additionally, the commission may require any of the IEV investigators to testify as to their findings. Either party may raise any objection it desires at any time. However, the basis for all objections must be clearly stated. Finally, at the conclusion of the presentations of all the evidence, the IEV and Mr. Christ will be provided an opportunity to make closing remarks, summing up their view of the evidence. Again, this is optional. And before we begin, I understand that there are three exhibits of consideration at this hearing that have been exchanged by the parties in advance. Those exhibits are as follows. Exhibit one, the notice of hearing, date of May 2nd, 2023. This exhibit two, the IEV's investigation report dated March 23rd, 2023. Are there any objections to any of these exhibits being marked and entered into evidence? No objection. No objections, Chair. Thank you. Those exhibits shall be admitted into evidence. By the party would like to have any additional documents entered into evidence during the course of the hearing, please ensure that they are properly introduced and marked for the record. Mission anticipates that its inquiry at this proceeding will be related to the matters addressing the investigation report and contained in the notice of hearing. If a line of questioning conducted by the commission moves into an area that has not been included in the report or notice, but that is material to the final determination of this matter, any party may request a recess in the proceeding to review that issue. Commission will deliberate privately and make a final decision at the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of the hearing and the decision will be issued as promptly as possible. We will now swear all the witnesses in. Council, I think we can confirm that all the individuals you anticipate presenting testimony in this manner are present on this call. I think I see that to be the case, correct? I'll set. Okay. Anyone who will be testifying this proceeding, please raise your right hand. Jed, do you find that everyone has raised their right hand that may be a witness in this matter? I don't have everybody on video chair. I think just Mr. Chris on our side. But Mr. Chris, thank you. I know you're represented by council, so I didn't want to direct you, but Mr. Chris should plan on taking the oath. Is that correct, Mr. Nozzle? Yes, that's correct, Chair. Okay. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will provide before the commission of this proceeding will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. I do. I'll have responded in the affirmative. Given the nature of a suitability review, there is necessarily a significant amount of personal or commercially sensitive information that the commission is being caught upon to consider. The public discussion of such information may result in an unwarranted invasion of an individual's personal privacy or may place an entity at a competitive disadvantage if such information were to be publicly discussed. For the commission to be able to effectively and diligently execute its legal obligations prior to making a suitability finding, it must be at liberty to fully inquire relative to any of these sensitive matters without compromising the individuals or entities involved. To do otherwise would be at a minimum unfair and potentially unlawful. Accordingly, my colleagues and I may elect to exercise the discretion afforded in accordance with 205CMR 101.01 paragraph seven to close this proceeding to the public to fully address certain matters. Before we begin, it is my understanding that a pre-hearing conference was conducted with representatives of the applicant, the IEP and our legal department at which procedural and evidentiary issues were discussed to either parties have any preliminary issues or objections they would like to raise. None from the IEP chair. No chair, none. Thank you. With that, I will ask council to please proceed with any opening remarks he would like to make on behalf of Mr. Chris. And if it is your intention to stipulate to some or all of the investigation report which has been marked as exhibit two, I invite you to do so at this juncture as well, Mr. Nozo. Thanks chair, thanks members of the commission. Just briefly, we wanna thank the investigation and enforcement bureau for the conduct of its thorough investigation and preparation of a very detailed report regarding Mr. Chris background. We will stipulate to that report chair and we do have two small updates of information as sort of life continues on some things change. I don't think it changes anything pertaining to the Mr. Chris's overall finding of suitability. We've let the IEP know about those updates as well and Mr. Chris will present that information during its testimony. Thank you. So we'll now turn to Ms. Franks and welcome Ms. Franks. Today may be your first official presentation on behalf of IEP. Thank you. And we ask that you make any introductory remarks you'd like to make and then move directly into the IEP's presentation. Thank you chair. I don't have any opening remarks and I'm comfortable moving right into the presentation. I'd like to start out by first thanking financial investigations chief Monica Chang, Sergeant Kevin Owen and Sergeant David Collette for their work on this investigation. Mr. Chris is a qualifier for blue tarp redevelopment LLC. Doing business is MGM Springfield. Mr. Chris submitted all of the required forms and complied with all of the IEP's request for supplemental and updated information during the investigation. The IEP also interviewed Mr. Chris and he has been cooperative and forthcoming throughout the entire process. In keeping with the IEP's established protocols for background reviews of casino qualifiers, we verified identity, confirmed financial stability and integrity, reviewed litigation history, searched criminal history, verified that no prohibited political contributions were made in Massachusetts and conducted checks of open source and law enforcement databases. As noted in the IEP's report, Mr. Chris did not have gaming experience prior to working for MGM resorts international but has experience working for multiple companies doing commercial software development. In October of 2021, Mr. Chris was hired by MGM resorts in the position of senior vice president, enterprise, regional and gaming technologies and digital. Subsequently, Mr. Chris was promoted to the position of senior vice president and chief information officer with similar job responsibilities. The new position was effective on September 8th, 2022. By way of update to the IEP's report, we have received license verifications back from Maryland and Michigan confirming that Mr. Chris is in good standing. The investigation did not uncover any derogatory information that would indicate that Mr. Chris lacks the requisite financial stability, integrity and background to be deemed suitable in accordance with the criteria listed in the Massachusetts gaming law and regulations. The IEP recommends the commission issue a positive determination of suitability. At this juncture, do you have any questions? Mr. Nozzle for Ms. Franks. So if you're on mute. We do not, thank you, chair. Commissioners, do any of you have questions for Ms. Franks or other members of the IEP relative to this presentation? Okay, I see no. Now I'll turn to you, Mr. Nozzle for your presentation and Mr. Chris. Thank you. Thank you, chair. We do have, I just have two, I should say just one question for Mr. Chris and then I'll make him available to the commission for any further questions that they may have. So Mr. Chris, if you can, can you provide the commission with the two updates regarding your personal financial and living situation that occurred since the report was prepared and in preparation for this hearing? Yes, thank you, Jed. The two updates that I had were first, I was renting an apartment at the time I did the application. The lease was up and we have moved to a rental house. Down the road from where we lived. So we have changed addresses and all the details have been provided to the IEP investigative committee and happy to provide any other documentation required. And then the second event is my wife did purchase a mini Cooper from many of Las Vegas. We purchased it outright with a trade-in of her existing Volkswagen T1. Other than that, there's been no material change to my application. I'm gonna ask the first question, Mr. Chris. First question is, we all want to know what color is the mini Cooper? It is bright red. I want to know if it's fun to drive. She loves it. What did you say, Commissioner O'Brien? I said, I want to know if it's fun to drive. What am I dreaming of? Oh, yes. It's super flagged six feet. I would love to get one of those. Well, there. We always like to get to the heart of our IEV investigations and we look to the automobile update. So thank you all teasing aside, Mr. Chris. Thank you for those two updates and I'll just confirm with the Andrew, you're all set with Mr. Chris on new address. We're all set. Excellent. Okay, commissioners, what questions do you have for Mr. Chris? Other than car related? I, mine's almost similar, but I just wanted to note that I do know where you're from, Mr. Chris. And I went to Northern Kentucky University and lived in Cincinnati for quite some time. And noticed not only where you went to high school and I do know people that went to high school there and it's Dublin, the famous home of Wendy's, right? So that's a great, great neck of the woods, but I'm sure the weather's better out West. Yes, I will testify to that. It is much better than in Ohio. Yes. Other questions for Mr. Christopher? All right. I think in this case, I would say that we have the benefit of a very thorough report from our IEB. We thank you, Ms. Franks and the colleagues who've supported you, Ms. Chang and Sergeant Collette. I guess also, who was your colleague? Sergeant Collette, who helped? Sergeant Owen conducted both of the investigations. Thank you. So at this juncture, I put in my pages, I'm hearing no other questions from the commissioners. Now that we have all the evidence in this matter before we move to any closing remarks, I'd like to just offer the commissioners the opportunity to go into a private session, should you have any confidential or sensitive questions that you want to address? Am I reading the room correctly that there are no outstanding questions whatsoever? No, but Madam Chair, I did want to say one thing. I feel like it would be remiss to not bring Commissioner Cameron back and say that this is a clean report, which is why I don't have any reasons to be going in and asking for anything in private. That's right. And thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. We can point out that sometimes if we do go into private session, it can be just simply for clarifications. In this case, we don't even need straight forward clarification. So for myself, I'm all set as well. And I guess I now will turn to the opportunity for closing remarks. First, I'll turn to Mr. Nozl and Mr. Chris. Do you have any further remarks that you'd like to close with? Chair, I'll just be brief again to thank the Commission for its time today on behalf of Mr. Chris, as well as the work of the IEB. Obviously these hearings go like this because of a lot of work that went into in advance of getting here. So I just want to thank the staff and the team for that. And of course, we urge the Commission to find Mr. Chris suitable, consistent with the IEB recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Chris. Yeah, I would echo Jed's remark. Thank you, Chair. I do thank the commissioners for their time. I was very impressed with that their ownness of the investigation really wanted to compliment the staff on that. But I don't have any further comments or questions. Happy to answer any further questions. Thank you, and Ms. Franks. No closing remarks from the IEB, Chair. Okay, and I do thank Mr. Knows and Mr. Chris for pointing out what is never the obvious but always appreciated by the commissioners. We have the benefit of knowing that such thorough investigations have such confidence in the work that's being performed behind the scenes and it allows us to be so much streamlined in our decision-making often. But I must say that I am very pleased with the process that we fight out now that gives us the opportunity to have all questions answered thoroughly. So thank you. At this point in time, I think that what we'll do is we'll end this virtual meeting and enter into our other virtual room for deliberations commissioners. And again, commissioners, thank you. I know I speak for all of us. Thank you to the parties of both IEB and MGM Springfield for today's hearing and evidence presented. Thank you so much. Thank you. Michelle, we'll wait to be transported into the other room. Thank you so much. I thought we had a separate link. I think you're correct. I think we leave this one. Excellent, thank you. Yep. So do we use this? We leave this one. We leave this one. We leave this one for the deliberations. Thank you. Am I good to end the stream or do we need a motion to adjourn or anything or is it just good to add? No, because it's an adjudicatory hearing. We can just... Okay. Thank you. Good question, Dave.