BUFFALO, N.Y. — Six days before being ousted this spring by the state legislature, Western Regional Off-Track Betting’s board of directors voted to give multi-year contracts to 18 of the agency’s top executives.
News outlets, including Investigative Post, first reported that the contracts for CEO Henry Wojtaszek and his lieutenants were “extensions” of existing agreements. But they were not extensions, according to OTB’s response to a Freedom of Information request filed by Investigative Post in July, seeking copies of the executives’ previous contracts.
OTB said it had no previous contracts to provide.
And a former OTB chief operating officer — who is suing OTB for wrongful termination and misuse of public funds — confirmed the contracts the board approved on April 27 were the first of their kind.