Milwaukee, Wisconsin (AP)

A jury has awarded more than $242 million to an entertainment firm and a group of investors who were part of a failed plan to develop a casino in Kenosha, attorneys say.

A jury found on May 24 that three partners in Nii-Jii, an entertainment firm that bid on the project, failed to disclose one of the partner’s business links to two Chicago crime figures.

Nii-Jii was created to develop the Paradise Key Casino for the Menominee Nation at the site of the Dairyland Greyhound Park racetrack. The Paradise Key Casino management firm also was found liable.

The Menominee Tribe withdrew that casino plan in 2001 but has a new proposal for the same site.

Nii-Jii Entertainment was awarded $220.9 million, and investors Dick Platt, Al Cohl and others were awarded $21.5 million in a civil case in Racine County Court, according to plaintiffs’ attorney George Kersten.

The jury also found that Morgan Murphy Jr., his son Morgan Murphy III and Robert D. Boyle had committed securities fraud, mail fraud, theft, embezzlement and racketeering as they concealed the past business links between Murphy Jr. and two people described in the civil complaint as having a “notorious and unsavory reputation” for their involvement in an unrelated kickback scheme.

Murphy Jr. has said he didn’t know about kickbacks a Chicago bank has admitted paying one of the crime figures when he was a partner with Murphy Jr. in a real estate deal. The Chicago men were convicted of fraud in the deal.

Boyle and the two Murphys were not charged criminally in the Nii-Jii deal.

Their attorney, Thomas Devine, said he planned to file motions to have the verdict thrown out because of mistakes at the trial. If that doesn’t work, he said the defendants would appeal.