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Updated 4:59 PM
Floyd Flake Pulls Out Of Aqueduct Racetrack Deal
By: NY1 News

An influential Queens minister is pulling out of a bid to bring thousands of video slot machines to the Aqueduct racetrack, amid reports that the project may be falling apart all together.

While the Reverend Floyd Flake was not a huge part of the development, less than one percent to be exact, his name lent credibility to the project.

Amidst a federal government and the state inspector general probe as to why his group was awarded the lucrative contract, Flake says he is through.

"I have a continuing obligation to my community and the various projects I created and developed including but not limited to the church, its related school, the retail facilities we established in the community, the Senior Citizens Housing Project, the home care operation and many others,” Flake said in a statement released today. “Unfortunately, my ongoing participation in Aqueduct Entertainment has become a distraction that has taken me and my attention away from the community projects I created and nurtured."

Investigators are probing whether the governor traded support for Flake's project in exchange for his political help, a charge the pastor dismissed last week on NY1’s political program “Inside City Hall.”

"All teams had political players on them, and no matter how their process came out, I think the same issues would have evolved, no matter who did not get that bid,” Flake said.

An unconfirmed report says another high-profile investor, Jay-Z, is also backing out.

Meanwhile, another report says the Paterson administration is threatening to pull the plug on the group altogether because the investors missed a deadline to submit to background checks. A spokesperson for the Paterson administration has not yet returned requests for comments.

The project is seen as key to development in southeast Queens, but it also matters city and statewide, as lawmakers are banking on the project pumping in hundreds of millions of dollars to the state budget.

A representative of the group says it submitted all the paperwork on time, and wants to break ground as soon as possible.




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