In a protracted and bitter battle over casino gambling in Buffalo, a judge has—for now—rejected claims that an attorney for the U.S. Department of the Interior was influenced by her husband, a lobbyist for the Seneca Indian Nation.
Western District Chief Judge William M. Skretny also made clear that whether or not Edith R. Blackwell, associate solicitor for the Interior’s Division of Indian Affairs, and her husband, Michael Rossetti, a former attorney for the agency, had anything to do with the government’s administrative decision to reinterpret a statute, the court, not the agency, will ultimately determine the law.
