With groundbreaking on a new Minnesota Vikings stadium only weeks away, final approval of key development agreements has been put on hold to allow the state to conduct a more extensive background investigation into the team's owners.
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, the public body overseeing the nearly $1 billion project, said Tuesday that it has retained Peter Carter of the Dorsey & Whitney law firm to lead a "due diligence" review of Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and his family's real estate business. Carter has tried cases involving racketeering and performed similar investigations for some of the nation's largest firms.
The review group, which will also include FTI Consulting, an international forensic accounting firm, will scrutinize Wilf family litigation in New Jersey and perform "extensive background checks" as well as review the NFL's investigations of owner applications, the authority said in a written statement.
The deeper background check stems from a finding last week by a New Jersey Superior Court judge in a long-pending lawsuit against Wilf and the family's real estate business. The judge said the family was guilty of fraud, breach of contract and violations of the state's civil racketeering statute in connection with a real estate partnership.
Gov. Mark Dayton, lead promoter of the stadium which has the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis set to pay $498 million of the $975 million price tag, later said that he found the judge's comments "very, very concerning" and urged the authority and its legal counsel to carefully review the owners and team commitments to the project to ensure that they are "truthful and accurate."
"We're just double-checking everything at this point," Michele Kelm-Helgen, the authority's chairwoman, said Tuesday.
A Dayton spokesman said Tuesday the governor believes the authority's plan is in line with what he was seeking.
The due diligence comes as the team and stadium authority near final negotiations on stadium lease and development agreements. The two sides had hoped to sign off on both at the authority's Aug. 23 meeting, but Kelm-Helgen said final action will likely be at a special meeting at a later date.