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With Andy Sanborn under criminal indictment and his business for sale, the former lawmaker and casino owner is asking a judge to grant him a crime waiver.

Sanborn’s legal team filed a new lawsuit against the state seeking a waiver for his business, not to get out of the criminal charges, but to keep the hope of any sale alive. Sanborn essentially wants a written promise that whoever buys his Win Win Win LLC won’t be held liable for the pending criminal charges.

“In order for the sale of WWW to proceed, Plaintiffs require relief in the form of declaratory judgment that NHLC and OAG cannot hold WWW’s buyer responsible for alleged conduct predating the acquisition,” Sanborn’s attorney Mark Knights wrote.

Sanborn and Win Win Win were both indicted last month on charges of allegedly stealing COVID relief money from the state by submitting false information to inflate revenue.

State law allows for a corporation to be criminally indicted for the actions of its directors or employees. Sanborn owns Win Win Win, the company that holds the gaming license for his Concord Casino. While Sanborn faces prison time for his charges if convicted, Win Win Win could face significant fines and other serious sanctions. 

Even the possibility of crippling fines and sanctions will drive off potential buyers, according to Knights, which makes the New Hampshire Attorney General’s decision to indict the Win Win Win corporation notable. The state is already forcing Sanborn to sell his business because of a different alleged COVID relief scam, and the indictments were handed up as Sanborn had a potential buyer going through the New Hampshire Lottery Commission license vetting process, according to the lawsuit.

That buyer, it turns out, was denied a gaming license during the suitability review process, though Sanborn’s lawyers have said the denial is based on a correctable error, and not anything negative in the buyer’s background. The buyer has not been identified.

All of this could be moot given that Sanborn has already missed the deadline to sell his casino business. In December, Sanborn’s gaming license was suspended, and he was given six months to sell Win Win Win. The gaining license is to be revoked completely if Sanborn misses that deadline, which would make Win Win Win virtually worthless.

Sanborn is seeking more time for the sale in order to get the potential buyer’s suitability issues corrected, and Hearings Officer Albert Gregory is currently considering legal issues surrounding that request. 

Sanborn’s troubles started last year after an audit found problems with the way the business was using COVID relief funds. Attorney General John Formella issued a statement declaring Sanborn unsuitable to hold a gaming license and accused him of improperly getting $844,000 in federal COVID funds. Sanborn reportedly used that money to pay himself through a different LLC, called The Best Revenge, and to buy sports cars for himself and his wife, Rep. Laurie Sanborn (R-Bedford.)

Last December, Hearing Officer Michael King ruled Sanborn engaged in conduct that “undermines the public confidence in charitable gaming” and that he had to sell the business or lose the license. King’s ruling gave Sanborn six months to sell with the option of one, three-month extension of a sale was pending. 

Andy Sanborn drew another bad card and may have lost his stake.

Arrested last week for alleged COVID fraud, the former state senator and his casino business are now indicted on felony charges for stealing from the state. 

The indictments handed up by the grand jury this week are related to Sanborn’s alleged fake numbers in his application for the Main Street Relief Fund grants. According to the indictments, Sanborn allegedly inflated the receipts for his casino by more than $1 million, netting about $188,000 in grant funds he was not entitled to.

Sanborn’s Concord Casino is technically owned by Sanborn’s Win Win Win LLC. According to the indictments, Sanborn’s June 2020 application for the grant funds inflated the business receipts and wrongly claimed that Win Win Win had been in operation for at least a year.

Sanborn, as an individual, is indicted on one felony count of theft by deception, and his LLC is charged with one count of theft by deception and theft by unauthorized taking. The charges against Win Win Win, which holds his gaming license, could end his bid to sell the casino business.

Sanborn is under state order to sell the Concord Casino as the result of another fraud accusation. He allegedly applied for federal COVID relief funds to which he was not entitled, and then misspent the $844,000 on things like sports cars and car equipment. He also allegedly used his various LLCs to prepay himself about 20 years’ worth of rent.

Sanborn is due in court next week for an arraignment on the charges. 

The public may get to see Andy Sanborn’s cards before he’s forced to fold ’em.

The former state senator and Concord Casino owner is suing the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, but no one knows why just yet. Nearly the entire case is sealed in Merrimack Superior Court. 

At the same time, Sanborn is under state order to sell his business by the end of the month in the wake of accusations he took $844,000 in COVID relief funds and used the money to pay himself rent and purchase sports cars.

New Hampshire Bulletin’s Annmarie Timmins filed a motion to unseal the case. On Wednesday, Merrimack Superior Court Judge John Kissinger gave attorneys for Sanborn and the state until Oct. 3 to come up with proposed redacted versions of the lawsuit and pleadings. Kissinger said the case is potentially sensitive because it deals with an open criminal investigation, according to Concord Monitor reporting. 

Attorney General John Formella said last year he planned to investigate Sanborn for the alleged COVID fraud, though no charges have yet been filed. 

Sanborn’s lawyers reportedly said Wednesday they are seeking another extension on the deadline to sell the business.

This isn’t the first time the handling of documents has created problems in Sanborn’s case.

NHJournal first reported the story that Kissinger issued an Aug. 23 order instructing prosecutors to explain how documents from Sanborn’s lawyers considered legally privileged ended up with the state’s investigative team.

Among other steps Kissinger ordered, he wants the state to provide to the court “factual affidavits on issues related to the past handling of seized documents and materials (including electronically stored information), as well as how clearly privileged documents may have been missed or not properly screened by the taint team.”

Kissinger’s order indicated there are close to 6,700 documents as part of the discovery in the ongoing investigation thus far. Some of them are in a commercial legal database program called Everlaw. It gives attorneys and law firms the ability to control and share information in large cases, and is frequently used to share discovery.

Prosecutors have been instructed to provide Kissinger with an audit of the state’s activity in the Sanborn Everlaw documents, showing which prosecutor viewed or downloaded any particular document.