Funny stuff from the Trop filing

Can you be jailed for perjury in a bankruptcy statement? If so, this one passage ought to be actionable. Tropicana Entertainment LLC President Scott Butera, laying out what the company is, wrote:

"These casinos and resorts provide customers with a high quality casino entertainment and hospitality experience through a comfortable gaming environment, a variety of hotel amenities, casual and fine dining choices, and non gaming entertainment options."

Uh, who's he kidding?

Also, this is kind of intriguing. Trop just last week hired a new finance guy to help bail them out of this mess. His resume is interesting. From the filing:

"Most recently, Mr. Kocienski was the Chief Financial Officer of the Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada since June 2006, where he was responsible for managing the finance related to the $3.4 billion project budget, transitioning the company from construction phase to operating phase, and evaluating potential acquisitions."

Uh, the Cosmopolitan,which is being built between CityCenter and Bellagio, is not transitioning from construction to operation. It's woefully behind on construction and has serious financing problems of its own.

Interestingly, Mr. Kocienski worked at Cosmo with ... Scott Butera, the same guy who is now president of Tropicana Entertainment LLC. Butera himself was brought in in March 2008, long after Tropicana's problems were in full bloom, so they're not his fault. But his prior company's not in such terrific shape either.

Finally, in case you're wondering if MGM Mirage will snap up the 34-acre Trop and own the entire corner, spokesman Alan Feldman told me: "Although we always evaluate opportunities in our core markets, we have not considered this."

Doesn't mean they won't, though. But MGM Mirage is already saddled with enormous debt and tons of real estate, so I imagine it's not likely.