There is no evidence that Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who recently bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal, secretly, through an intermediary, has anything to do with the recent sale of the Block Island Times.

And yet there is a suggestion circulating, strange as it might seem, that he could.

After all, Adelson, we just learned, through good old-fashioned reporting, essentially bought the Las Vegas paper for $140 million, using a Connecticut straw man, Michael E. Schroeder, publisher of two small Connecticut papers, the Bristol Press and New Britain Herald.

And then, just this week, we learned that Schroeder has also purchased the little Block Island Times.

If Schroeder was fronting for Adelson at the start of his 2015 newspaper buying spree in Vegas, why not in the latter part, as he landed on Block Island?

The news has not been going down well on Block Island, where the rumor mill is suggesting Adelson is eyeing the Rhode Island resort for a casino, a longtime fear for islanders over the years, as casinos hatched in unlikely places around the Northeast.

It is unlikely Adelson would buy the Block Island Times just to push his GOP, radical right agenda.

I suspect it is more likely that Schroeder was using some of the money he made fronting for Adelson in Vegas to snap up a small, profitable, New England weekly newspaper.

He has disclosed little about the sale except that he had not been to Block Island for 25 years until he began negotiating to buy the paper there.

The departing owners, Fraser and Betty Lang, the fifth to manage the Block Island Times, have said nothing publicly beyond a written statement in which they praised the new owner's commitment to community journalism.

Blah blah blah, they rambled in their statement, written, presumably, as they counted the money from the sale.

I can't say the Langs did much during their term to improve the newspaper — long one of my favorites in New England, for its thorough coverage of a quirky place — but they didn't do much harm, either.

Schroeder, on the other hand, with or without Adelson behind him on Block Island, is a menace to journalism, some of the reporting on the Adelson fallout has suggested.

I can see why the many independent-minded residents of Block Island are talking about the need for a new newspaper startup, someone to compete with Schroeder and the once dependable Block Island Times.

Among the attacks on Schroeder to surface recently is a common but serious one lodged from newsrooms against publishers, the suggestion that he bends the rules of good journalism for advertisers.

Some also have criticized the way he tried to keep Adelson's involvement in the Las Vegas Review-Journal purchase secret, even from the paper's staff, telling them to just do their work.

But the harshest criticism has come from Steve Collins (no relation), a 20-year veteran of the Bristol Press reporting staff, who said Schroeder has committed a breach of journalism ethics of epic proportions.

Collins resigned over a story that appeared in the Bristol Press, under a fake byline, criticizing a Nevada judge who happens to be presiding over a wrongful firing case involving an Adelson employee. The judge has scolded Adelson in her courtroom.

The Bristol Press story, which included quotes from sources who said they were never interviewed, also allegedly includes passages that were plagiarized.

The fake byline, Edward Clarkin, seems to combine Schroeder's middle name with his mother's maiden name, although the publisher has refused to say whether he wrote it.

Of course the suggestion of profit-driven attack journalism is alarming.

But the notion that Schroeder may have planted a story to help his new business partner also reeks of ineptitude. What impact could an unflattering story about a Nevada judge printed in a small Connecticut newspaper possibly have?

When you buy a little weekly newspaper like the Block Island Times, which owns neither its press nor even a building, you are mostly paying for the goodwill of the business.

It sounds like a lot of that has already been lost on the insular little island, where there is not a lot of appetite to have outsiders, especially ones under fire for ethical lapses, moderate their news and communication.

Here comes the Block Island Beacon, or whatever it's going to be called, the product of some journalism entrepreneur who will see that the timing on the little island 12 miles off the coast of Rhode Island is just right for a new venture.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct