Curt Schilling said Tuesday he was surprised to learn in 2010 that most of state reps voting on a $125 million job development program were unaware that a big chunk of the money was “earmarked” for 38 Studios.
Only one lawmaker, former Rep. Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich), voted against the job guarantee program at the time, warning that it was a scandal in the making. Speaking during an hours-long appearance on WPRO-AM’s John DePetro Show, Schilling said he watched the legislative debate on television from tax credit broker Michael Corso’s law office.
“Not as many people know about this as I’m being led to believe,” Schilling said, referring to 2010. “When Representative Watson stands up and he just starts going off, I realize nobody in the legislature had any idea that this 75 million was completely earmarked for 38 Studios.”
“And I looked at Corso and I looked at Tom [Zaccagnino, a 38 Studios executive], and I said, you know what, ‘If I’m an elected official, that’s me right there …. That’s what you want your politician to do, to stand up and scream when they see something that isn’t right.”
Schilling said at the time he expected 38 Studios to become a success. But he began to believe “some people are playing games here” due to how just a few insiders — including Corso, former House Speaker Gordon Fox, and former House Finance chairman Steven Costantino — knew about plans to steer a $75 million loan guaranty to 38 Studios.
After the legislative vote, the state’s economic development agency approved the loan guaranty for the video-game company. 38 Studios then relocated to Rhode Island from Maynard, Massachusetts, before going bankrupt in 2012. Rhode Island taxpayers remain on the hook for about $28 million due to the company’s collapse.
Schilling has declined repeated interview requests from Rhode Island Public Radio.
Yet after a recent settlement involving Schilling and some other 38 Studios executives, the former Red Sox star spoke on a range of subjects during his appearance on DePetro’s talk show. Callers treated him gently, with two of the four callers over the first two hours thanking Schilling for helping the Red Sox to win the World Series in 2004.
Schilling said he was “stunned” that criminal charges were not brought against Corso, the lawyer who was an associate of Gordon Fox. “I was told by people in this state that are in positions of authority and power that they knew that Corso and Fox had committed some sort of crime, but they couldn’t prove it and didn’t know what it was,” Schilling said.
In a statement, Corso’s lawyer, Michael J. Lepizzera Jr., fired back, saying that Schilling “is readying himself for a personal slander suit.”
“He wants to blame everyone but himself for making what has proven to be a very poor business decision not only for himself and the state of Rhode Island, but Mr. Corso as well,” Lepizzera wrote. “As it turns out (and Curt conveniently forgets) Mr. Corso was one of the largest individual investors in the company and suffered some of the largest losses . . . losses that resulted in millions of dollars of losses for my client. Curt knows this yet he claims Mr. Corso profited from this failed business venture. Curt’s comments are completely reckless and false.”
Fox is serving a prison sentence for unrelated corruption charges.
State investigators announced in July that a criminal investigation into 38 Studios produced no charges.
Schilling said he regrets how the failure of 38 Studios has had a negative effect in Rhode Island, but he stopped short of making a public apology and said he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
“I’ll ask the people who are listening, what do you want me to apologize for?” he said. “And if there’s something specific, then absolutely. The whole stole-this, stole-that, that’s not what happened …. A lot of what people want me to apologize for never happened, or I never did.”
Schilling, meanwhile, said he has decided to challenge Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, as a Republican in 2018, but has not yet received approval from his wife. “I’m going to run, but I haven’t talked to Shonda, my wife. Ultimately,” he said. “It’s going to come down to how her and I feel this would affect our marriage and our kids.”
