Pearl River Resort hires new outside auditor

CHOCTAW — Pearl River Resort and Casino, owned by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, has hired a new independent auditor.

BDO USA, a century-old professional services firm providing tax, financial advisory and consulting services to a wide range of publicly traded and privately held companies, will assume the external auditing duties previously performed by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

PricewaterhouseCoopers had been providing external auditor services for Pearl River Resort and Casino for more than a decade.

In August, The Clarion-Ledger announced that PricewaterhouseCoopers had quit as the Choctaws’ outside auditor. The firm gave no reason for the decision.

The firm’s decision came at the same time FBI agents subpoenaed records from Beasley Denson, the tribe’s chief. His office would not comment to the newspaper.

In July, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded $200 million in securities borrowed by the Choctaw Resort Development Enterprise to junk bond status. That came two days after an FBI raid at the Pearl River Resort near Philadelphia during which agents seized hard drives and computers.