MONTGOMERY – Governor Bob Riley on Tuesday responded to a letter sent by Houston County Commissioner Mark Culver about the Country Crossing gambling facility outside Dothan. The Governor’s letter to Commissioner Culver can be read here.
In it, Governor Riley writes that a duly elected judge in Houston County issued a search warrant for the gambling operations at Country Crossing based upon evidence uncovered by a law enforcement investigation. Based on that evidence, the judge found that there was probable cause to believe that illegal gambling was taking place at Country Crossing.
“Law enforcement officials were preparing to execute that duly issued search warrant when you and others obtained a temporary restraining order. That order was issued in the middle of the night without any effort having been made to allow representatives of my Task Force to present counterarguments. Your lawyers yesterday admitted that the temporary restraining order was illegally issued,” the Governor writes in his letter to Culver.
“While I want to engage in a civil dialogue with you and others in Houston County about these issues, I cannot agree to allow illegal activity at Country Crossing to continue indefinitely until the litigation that you filed runs its course,” Governor Riley wrote. “It would be a dangerous precedent to allow the filing of a civil case to frustrate the ability of State officials to enforce our criminal laws.”
