A federal lawsuit accuses Hamilton County commissioners and others involved in construction of new stadiums downtown of hiring "front" businesses - minority companies that are actually owned by white men - instead of involving true minority-owned companies in the projects. The suit, filed Friday by attorney Ken Lawson on behalf of black business owners William Cargile and Frederick Hargrove, calls the exclusion a "scheme to defraud" minority business from earning stadium contracts. Hargrove claims he was forced to go out of businesses because of unkept promises by the suit's targets.

The suit was filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute, widely know as RICO, because of the accusation of conspiracy to exclude the black businesses. A RICO lawsuit allows plaintiffs to seek triple damages.

The suit also seeks monetary damages for fraud, mental anguish, emotional distress and al so for attorneys' fees.

The suit accuses the commissioners of promising to set a goal of 15 percent of the stadium contracts for minorities in exchange for support from black leaders for passage of the 1996 half-cent sales tax that funds the projects.

Commissioners, the suit insists, never expected to deliver on that promise.

"The County Commissioners' intent when making the promise of a 15 percent goal for stadium contract for minorities and women-owned businesses was to gain support in the minority communities to vote for and pass the sales tax.

Their actual intent was to defeat the goals, enabling more dollars to be siphoned off to Republican Party campaign contributors, friends and other majority businesses," the suit notes.

Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus refused comment Friday. The suit also accuses the commissioners of knowing that the 15 percent minority participation goal was illegal and that they failed to take the proper steps to ensure that the goal would be reached. "The County Commissioners concealed these facts from the representatives of the minority groups during the course of their negotiations with them," it reads.

Hamilton County previously was sued by a New York company that was the lowest bidder of a contract awarded to a minority company that submitted a higher bid. Commissioners settled that suit by paying the New York company $48,000 and agreeing not to enforce the 15 percent minority participation goal. That, Friday's suit notes, cost Cargile's company 49 percent of a $9 million contract to pour the deep foundation for the Bengals' stadium. The suit also accuses County Administrator David Kringsand Jonathan Railey, the former head of the county's minority development, of mail fraud and obstruction of justice for mailing reports that intentionally overstated the amount of stadium business awarded to minorities.

"I look forward to reading it," Krings said Friday of the suit.

Copyright 1999 The Cincinnati Post