Scam alert

Copley's James P. Sweeney reports today that investors across the U.S. are being pitched about a big Indian casino to be built near Magic Mountain in Valencia, involving a Native American band up around Mt. Shasta, 600 miles north. The pitches are coming from a Los Angeles man named Tom Kelly, says the story in the San Diego Union. A spokesman for the Shasta Nation says they don't know what Kelly's up to, and adds they aren't a federally recognized tribe anyway (and thus can't run a casino.) "It shows the hustlers are moving in to try to exploit small investors with hopes of making huge profits from off-reservation Indian gaming," said Peter Melnicoe, former general counsel to California's gambling commission. "It shows how out of hand this is getting."