Olympia Group

Las Vegas-based Olympia Group purchased the majority share of Evergreen Mountain Enterprises LLC last month, appointing Dean Harrold, vice chairman of Olympia Gaming, as the new president of the casino, if approved at the polls. Harrold has held several top positions in Las Vegas, including past president and chief operating office of Caesars Palace, according to his Web biography. Olympia Group owns one other resort casino, the 1,400-room Southern-Highlands Casino Resort on the southern edge of Las Vegas.

Minority partners: 25 percent owners

Seth Carey

An attorney with Carey & Associates in Rumford, Carey is a graduate of the Vermont Law School and was admitted to the Maine Bar in 2006. The founder of Evergreen Mountain Enterprises and author of Question 2, the proposed casino project in Oxford county, Carey sold all but 15 percent of his interest in Evergreen Mountain to Las Vegas-based Olympia Group in September. He had aggressively campaigned for the project, viewing it as solid economic development in the River Valley, as a four-season resort and casino to be sited somewhere between Rumford and Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry. He stepped down from the campaign in April in the face of charges of ethical violations before the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar. Appointed to the Rumford Planning Board last year and active in local politics and development groups, including the River Valley Growth Council, Carey is also a member of the town’s Economic Development Committee.

Howard Kanner

Kanner is a founding partner in the law firm of Kanner & Pintaluga in Boynton Beach, Fla. A graduate of Florida State University and Vermont Law School, he is admitted to the bar in Florida and the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida. Kanner’s legal expertise includes motor vehicle accidents, premises liability, slip and fall accidents, “bad faith” insurance law and wrongful death cases. According to his Web site, he has recovered more than $30 million for his injured clients through settlement or verdict since early 2007. He is a member of the American Association of Trial Lawyers, the American Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, and the Broward County Bar Association.

Jay Carrier

Carrier, born in Rumford and now living in Connecticut, expressed his pro-casino stand in a letter to the Sun Journal in May last year, pointing out that “gambling is legal and alive and well in this state” in the form of scratch tickets. He takes issue with the idea that a casino with Maine-only patrons would be bad for the economy. “Isn’t it the purpose of business to attract patrons?” he asked. In a letter to the Press Herald last year, Carrier described himself as fourth-generation Rumford and “co-founder of Evergreen Mountain Resorts” who has watched his “proud town reduced to a borderline welfare community” and supports a destination resort casino to boost the economy.

Stavros Mendros

Mendros served two terms in the Maine House of Representatives as a Lewiston Republican. In the Legislature, he served on the Joint Standing Judiciary Committee. A graduate of the University of Maine, he ran unsuccessfully for his party’s nomination in the GOP primary to represent the 2nd Congressional District in 2002. He represented Ward 1 on the Lewiston City Council for two terms, but was defeated in his re-election bid last year. He left office in January. Last December, Mendros pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of false acknowledgment of oath in the misuse of his notary commission stemming from referendum petition drives in support of a Washington County casino that he oversaw. A fourth count was dismissed and he was fined $2,000. He is a member of the Salvation Army advisory board, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and Lewiston Elks Lodge

Peter Martin

Martin of Winslow, a longtime adviser to the pro-casino campaign, has participated in a number of presentations of the casino proposal to various groups in the Oxford County area, and attended a session before the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee in March in which the committee voted unanimously against the bill, sending the casino proposal to referendum vote. He is listed in the MaineCasinosNow.com campaign records as a paid employee of the PAC. Martin, the former owner of John Martin’s Manor restaurants in Auburn and Waterville, sold the Auburn business years ago and sold the Watervile restaurant to Autotote of Connecticut in 2005.

Paul Thornton

Thornton of Long Island, Maine, is one of the top campaign contributors to MaineCasinosNow.com, the PAC behind the Oxford County casino proposal, contributing more than $100,000 to the effort.

The remaining three shares are owned by top signature gatherers Mike Breau of Rumford and Jay Taylor of Lewiston, and by Tony Palmenteri, who was brought to the table by Martin. Breau and Taylor accepted partial ownership in lieu of full payment for their work during the petition drive.