Lake Ozark Casino Investors Hit With $1.6 Million Lawsuit From Signature-Gathering Company

The investment group behind a proposed casino at Lake of the Ozarks is facing a $1.6 million lawsuit from a company it hired to gather signatures in an effort to change the Missouri Constitution.

Changing The Constitution

The Missouri Constitution limits casinos to being built on or near the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and the investment group — Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming — has been working to change that stipulation since 2020.

Planned Site Of Osage River Gaming & Convention Casino

A constitutional change requires approval from a majority of Missouri voters, so the proposed new language must appear before voters on a ballot. That’s already been tried once, in 2024. That attempt failed: Missourians rejected the measure 52.5% NO to 47.5% YES.

But the investors regrouped in an effort to get the question back on the ballot in 2026, publicly stating they would begin signature-gathering earlier and emphasizing their optimism that the process would meet with fewer obstacles.

By May, however, the signature-gathering effort had ground to a halt, with investor Andy Prewitt of Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming telling LakeExpo they had paused the campaign, noting they had not gathered enough signatures by the May 15 state deadline. The group needed approximately 200,247 signatures to get on the November 2026 ballot.

Now the group is facing a lawsuit from the signature-gathering organization Groundgame Political Solutions LLC.

The Lawsuit

The lawsuit names Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, Jeff Tegethoff, Andy Prewitt, Signature GLP LLC, AET 2021 Irrevocable Trust, Ramis Gheith and several John Doe defendants.

Groundgame owner Meghan Cox says in the lawsuit — filed on June 5, 2026 — that the investment group contracted her team when they had begun to lose faith that the original signature-gathering contractor (unnamed in the lawsuit) would obtain enough signatures in time to get the issue on the November 2026 ballot.

From the Introduction portion of the lawsuit:

To convince Plaintiff to provide its signature collection services, Defendants employed promises of timely payment, successful campaign bonuses, and millions of dollars in investor funding. Defendants also boasted of their prior experience, as this was their second attempt at a constitutional amendment.

The only problem is that Defendants had no intention of paying Plaintiff. Defendants did not have millions in funding on the way and there would be no successful campaign bonuses. And Defendants knew it. Yet, with repeated promises that the money was coming—complete with fabricated screenshots of wire transactions that never occurred—Defendants convinced Plaintiff to take over a massive signature collection effort, then left Plaintiff in the lurch.

Cox is suing the investment group for approximately $1.6 million. She says her company was paid $710,000 by Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, but she says they still owe the remaining balance on approximately $2.3 million in invoices. Instead, Cox alleges investors made empty promises, sent falsified screenshots indicating money transfers that never happened, and continued receiving her business’s services even after they knew they had no intention of paying for them.

Cox says she personally advanced more than $1 million of her own money to keep the time-sensitive signature effort moving forward, expecting to be reimbursed by the investors.

As evidence, the lawsuit includes screenshots that Cox alleges show Prewitt and Tegethoff promising payments coming soon, apologizing for delays, and referencing an imminent $20 million investment into the project.

Jeff Tegethoff

Tegethoff is a St. Louis developer who has been working on large projects at the Lake for several years. He completed the Preserve at Sycamore Creek apartments in Osage Beach, and has for years been working on The Oasis at Lakeport — the $500 million entertainment complex currently under construction next to the Grand Glaize Bridge in Osage Beach.

Tegethoff’s development company, Tegethoff Development LLC, recently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and a dispute has publicly surfaced between him and some other developers on the Oasis project. Tegethoff is also facing a lawsuit from investors in a residential project he was involved with in the St. Louis area, who allege he used investment funds improperly. He has denied those accusations.

In late 2025, Tegethoff announced he was joining with the investment group that includes Prewitt — and that had reorganized under a new name — in order to work as the lead developer on the proposed casino project that would include a shopping area and hotel.

In the suit against the developers, Tegethoff’s business Signature GLP LLC appears, with Cox stating Tegethoff created the LLC around the same time the investment group was reorganized as Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming. Cox states in the lawsuit, “Defendant Jeff Tegethoff later represented to Plaintiff that Signature GLP LLC was the collection point he was using for investor funding for the ballot measure entity.”

Settlement Attempt

Cox says in an attempt to resolve the matter, she allegedly entered into a settlement agreement for $1.4 million with Lake of the Ozarks Community Gaming, Signature GLP, and Tegethoff Development LLC (which is not a party in the lawsuit). However, she says that settlement fell apart.

According to allegations in the lawsuit, Cox extended the settlement timeline to give the entities time to move money around, with a deadline of 5:01 p.m., Friday, May 29 to have the money wired to her account. She alleges Tegethoff agreed he had the authority to make the settlement, had sufficient funds to settle, and would not enter into bankruptcy to avoid payment. However, she alleges, the money had not been transferred by the deadline.

“Defendant Jeff Tegethoff did not personally pay any part of the Settlement on Monday of

the following week (June 1, 2026),” the suit alleges. “Instead, Defendant Jeff Tegethoff used June 1 to arrange for one of the parties to the Settlement Agreement, Tegethoff Development, LLC, to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.”

LakeExpo reached out to Prewitt and Tegethoff about the lawsuit. Prewitt responded that their attorneys have advised them not to comment.

The lawsuit contains allegations that have not been proven in court. Cox has requested a jury trial to settle the matter.