Lawyers for three men charged with fraud related to the proposed Everett casino development said Wednesday that they would call former and current State Police investigators to testify under oath that two former troopers committed misconduct and gained unauthorized access to files held by the state attorney general’s office.
The lawyers asked US Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler to hold an evidentiary hearing to subpoena witnesses to determine what access the former State Police troopers had to the files, saying the troopers’ misconduct would undermine the allegations of fraud against their clients.
The former troopers, Joseph Flaherty and Stephen Matthews, had been working as private investigators for Wynn Resorts Casino, the alleged victim of the defendants’ fraud. Wynn ultimately won the bid to develop the $1.7 billion casino.
“We need to get [people] under oath in this courtroom, to testify to the veracity of this,” said Michael J. Connolly, an attorney for Anthony Gattineri, one of the defendants.
Connolly also questioned why Flaherty and Matthews had unauthorized access to a secret investigative room at the attorney general’s office at all.
Assistant US Attorney Kristina Barclay argued that the request for the hearing is baseless, saying Flaherty and Matthews have already provided sworn affidavits that refute the allegations.
Bowler said she would consider Connolly’s request to have Barclay turn over more information, or whether to hold an evidentiary hearing that would include testimony under oath.
Gattineri and two codefendants — Dustin J. DeNunzio and Charles Lightbody — are charged with fraud for allegedly deceiving Wynn and state regulators by hiding Lightbody’s financial stake in the Everett property where Wynn plans to build a casino.
Lightbody is a reputed Mafia associate and a convicted felon, and the state’s gambling law bars criminals from profiting from a gambling facility.
Lightbody moved to sell his partnership in the group that owned the land, FBT Everett Realty, in the summer of 2013. By then, however, Wynn had been paying $100,000 a month to FBT Everett Realty to secure its interest in the property.
Gambling commissioners concluded that the partners of FBT had deceived Wynn by concealing that Lightbody was involved until July 2013.
The allegation that the investigators, Flaherty and Matthews, had unauthorized access to investigative files was raised in a lawsuit the city of Boston filed challenging the development of the casino in Everett, on the Boston cityline.
Lawyers for Lightbody and the codefendants say the disclosure that Matthews and Flaherty had access to the investigative files would also undercut the allegations of fraud against their clients.
Flaherty and Matthews were working for Wynn when they allegedly accessed the files at the attorney general’s headquarters in 2013, and so Wynn would have known of Lightbody’s alleged ownership of the Everett land, Connolly argued in court Wednesday. He said the disclosure would negate the fraud allegation.
Christopher Loh, a spokesman for Attorney General Maura Healey, said in a statement Wednesday that, “Our office conducted a review and we are confident that the allegations that we shared investigative material regarding this case with private investigators hired by Wynn are untrue.”
Milton J. Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @miltonvalencia.