In an ongoing legal battle between Anthony Sanborn, owner of now-shuttered Concord Casino, and the New Hampshire Attorney General, a new issue involving the handling of privileged documents has emerged.

On Aug. 21, Judge John Kissinger of the Merrimack County Superior Court ordered both parties to submit a plan to address the handling of these documents and “how clearly privileged documents may have been missed or not properly screened by the taint team.”

A taint team ensures that attorneys involved in the investigation or prosecution remain unaffected by potentially privileged materials and decide what information can be shared with the investigative or prosecutorial teams.

The court order also reveals that 6,697 documents related to the case may have been accessed or downloaded by attorneys representing the New Hampshire Attorney General before a taint team had a chance to review them.

These documents were uploaded to Everlaw, a legal discovery platform where both parties can submit and review files.

Since Judge Kissinger’s order, a review protocol to address the documents that could have been mishandled has been submitted. But that document is sealed.

The dispute centers around Sanborn’s WIN WIN WIN LLC, which operated Concord Casino on South Main Street, but not much more is known beyond that – details on the case filed on July 30 have remained sealed and are not accessible to the public.

The casino was shut down in January after Sanborn was found unsuitable for the state’s charitable gaming model.

This is not Sanborn’s first feud with the state’s Attorney General.

It all began when a joint investigation by the New Hampshire Lottery Commission and the Attorney General’s Office revealed that Sanborn had fraudulently obtained and misused $844,000 in pandemic relief funds — money meant for small businesses, not casinos.

After the investigation, last year, Sanborn was ordered to shut down his casino and sell his business as he was found unsuitable for the state’s charitable gaming model.

He now faces a deadline of Sept. 30 to finalize the casino sale. Missing this deadline could lead to a two-year revocation of his gaming operator license. Multiple potential buyers have been identified, including a gaming company based in Las Vegas.

In separate administrative hearings regarding the sale, Sanborn’s legal team has claimed that the Attorney General has been interfering with the sale and complicating the process.

But, after several hearings, a judge ruled that the Attorney General does not have the authority to dictate the terms of the sale agreement between operator Sanborn and the buyer.

Sruthi Gopalakrishnan can be reached at sgopalakrishnan@cmonitor.com