Carl Icahn nixes charity bid to blow up ex-Trump casino

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — An auction house trying to raise money for a youth charity by soliciting bids to blow up a former casino once owned by President Donald Trump called off the effort Monday after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from conservative billionaire Carl Icahn.

Icahn told The Associated Press his philanthropic arm will donate $175,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City to replace money that would have been raised by a charity auction of the right to press the button to demolish the former Trump Plaza casino.

He owns the former casino, which has been in the process of demolition for months.

Icahn's decision came shortly after Bodnar's Auction canceled its solicitation of bids, citing a letter from Icahn's company instructing it not to proceed with the auction because it considered the public “spectacle” to be a safety risk.

“From the beginning, we thought the auction and any other related spectacle presented a safety risk, and we were always clear that we would not participate in any way,” a spokesman for Icahn said in a statement.

Last month, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small announced the auction as a fundraising mechanism he hoped would raise in excess of $1 million for the organization.

Opened in 1984, Trump’s former casino was closed in 2014 and has fallen into such a state of disrepair that demolition work began last year. The remainder of the structure was to have been dynamited on Jan. 29, but that date has been pushed back.

Small said he will announce the new demolition date on Thursday.

The auction house said Monday it had no choice but to cancel the auction after hearing from Icahn's company.

“After exhausting every avenue to bring the parties together to make this exciting event happen, we received the final...