By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
A Rhode Island House Committee investigating the failed loan deal that left the state responsible for tens of millions of dollars in the wake of the 38 Studios failure is inviting Curt Schilling and an audit firm to testify to their roles in the debacle.
House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Karen McBeth (D-Cumberland) said at the conclusion of a 1 1/2 hour hearing Tuesday night that she would send letters inviting Schilling, the former Red Sox pitcher and video game company owner and the audit firm Deloitte to appear before the committee at a yet-to-be determined date to talk about the deal.
“I think it’s getting a perspective that we don’t know yet,” said McBeth of Schilling.
“He went into this, he believed in his vision of this, and certainly we know where it ended up. But, he knows who he met with first, he knows who he was at those meetings. Do they coincide with the timeline that we have?”
Schilling has declined to be deposed in the civil lawsuits or to otherwise speak publicly about the failure of his video game company, which was lured to Rhode Island with the promise of a state-backed loan guarantee.
At Tuesday’s hearing, committee members listened as their staff director reviewed newly released documents from the civil lawsuits, released under court order last month in a massive ‘document dump’.
Director Beth Cotter reviewed emails detailing early meetings and correspondence, including reservations about the loan deal expressed by some state analysts and others that were never presented to the Economic Development Corporation, the state’s former economic development agency, since renamed, which approved the loan deal.
McBeth said she plans future hearings to include witness testimony.
“I’d like to know exactly why the negative side of this deal, according to what we’re seeing, was suppressed,” said House Minority Leader Brian Newberry, (R-North Smithfield, Burrillville), a member of the Oversight Committee.
“These people at EDC were either lied to, misled or were completely off their rockers in approving this. And, I want to know who was responsible for misleading them,” Newberry said.
