A Las Vegas paper reportedly killed a story on sexual misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn 20 years ago despite making the women take lie detector tests.
Review-Journal courts reporter Carri Geer had interviewed two cocktail servers at Wynn’s Mirage in 1998, who described a culture of sexual harassment at the hotel and casino.
One server, who had just celebrated welcoming her first grandchild, said in a court filing at the time, that Wynn pressured her into having sex with him because he wanted to ‘experience sex with a grandmother.’
They said they were constantly groped by gamblers, without any intervention from staff.
While one server, Cynthia Simmons, said she had to ‘accommodate customers sexually,’ in the 1990s, in a court filing.
A Las Vegas paper reportedly killed a story on sexual misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn (pictured) 20 years ago despite making the women take lie detector tests
Greer, now the Review-Journal’s metro editor, says that when she pitched the story to her editors, then-publisher Sherman Frederick reportedly told her to take the highly unusual step of asking the women to undergo lie-detector tests.
Yet, even after the women underwent the tests, the story was spiked. Greer says that after her story was killed, she was ordered to delete it from the newspaper’s computer system. However, she kept copies of the story and her notes for decades.
‘I always wanted to tell these women’s stories. That’s why I saved this file for 20 years,’ Geer said.
Wynn has since been accused of sexual misconduct by a number of female employees at his Las Vegas hotel and casino, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and #MeToo campaign.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal spoke with 150 people who currently work for Wynn or have in the past, who described the lengths they would allegedly go to in order to avoid being alone with their boss.
Review-Journal courts reporter Carri Geer (pictured) had interviewed two cocktail servers at Wynn’s Mirage in 1998, who described a culture of sexual harassment at the hotel and casino.
Greer says bosses at the Las Vegas Review-Journal (pictured) ordered her to delete the story in 1998
Some scheduled fake appointments to make sure they would not be chosen to give Wynn spa treatments, while others went so far as to hide in bathrooms when he came into the salon.
One worker said that she was coerced into performing a sex act on Wynn, 76, with her hand at the end of his massages, adding that Wynn asked at one point if she could use her mouth rather than rubbing his penis to climax when they were done with the session.
That woman refused, but in 2005 another employee was not able to decline Wynn’s advances when he ordered her to disrobe and lie on a table so they could have sex. She reported Wynn and received a $7.5 million settlement, which was revealed by Wynn’s ex-wife Elaine in court papers.
It was that court filing which led to the Wall Street Journal’s investigation.
But the sexual misconduct allegations could potentially have come to light decades earlier if the Review-Journal had published the story originally.
The original allegations came to light in a 1997 lawsuit, after 11 waitresses sued The Mirage over discrimination, claiming then-chairman Wynn told them they looked fat, and changed policy to require waitresses to maintain the same weight at the time they were hired.
That lawsuit, and the employees’ responses to Wynn’s attorney’s questions, filed in court, described a culture of harassment and misconduct by Wynn.
Two servers at Wynn’s Mirage (pictured) described a culture of sexual harassment at the hotel and casino
Plaintiff Earlene Wiggins, who has since died, said in the suit baccarat players would grope her and ask for kisses, while Simmons had to ‘accommodate customers sexually.’
Another plaintiff said she was sent to one of the hotel’s high-roller villas to have sex a friend of Wynn.
The Review-Journal published a story about the meeting where Wynn allegedly called staff fat, and the waitresses’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.
But the newspaper failed to report the allegations about sexual harassment, coercion and misconduct.
Allegations quoted from lawsuits are exempt from defamation claims so it is unclear why the newspaper would choose to publish some claims and not others.
Former publisher Frederick denies any memory of the 1998 story, or agreeing to pay for the polygraph tests.
However, both polygraph examiner Ronald Slay and Kevin Doty, an attorney who worked for the Review-Journal at the time, remembered setting up the meeting.
These guys: Steve Wynn is being accused of sexual misconduct by a number of female employees at his Las Vegas casino (l t r: Roberto Cavalli, Elaine Wynn, Steve Wynn, Melania Trump, Eva Cavalli and Donald Trump in 2006)
Doty says Thomas Mitchell, then the editor-in-chief, went with the women for the exam.
Mitchell said he couldn’t remember this case but said the newspaper would polygraph test occasionally.
Both he and Frederick insist that the newspaper never killed stories because of outside pressure.
The polygraph results found that Wiggins appeared to be telling the truth, while Simmons appeared to by lying. But Simmons says she was simply nervous. She told the newspaper recently she felt ‘silenced’ by their decision not to publish at the time.
Greer says that she was called into Frederick’s office for a meeting with Wynn’s attorneys in 1998.
A short time later, she was ordered to delete the story.
However, she kept copies of the story, court records, polygraph results and the receipt for the test. She also kept the notes from a Review-Journal lawyer whose suggested edits included deleting allegations of a cocktail waitress who claimed she was pressured to have sex with Wynn.
Second wife, third marriage: In 2011, Wynn married socialite Andrea Hissom (pair above at Mar-a-Lago over New Year’s)
The notes also recommended she run the story past Frederick.
Wynn, 76, has strongly denied the new allegations of sexual misconduct, which he attributed to a campaign led by his ex-wife.
Meanwhile, Nevada gambling regulators are investigating the sexual misconduct allegations against Wynn. The Nevada Gaming Control Board announced the investigation in a statement Tuesday.
The board says it opened the probe after completing a review, but it did not provide any details. Board chairwoman Becky Harris declined to comment.
He resigned Saturday as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The most recent allegations, published in the Wall Street Journal, included claims that Wynn asked a masseuse to bring him to climax with her mouth, and when she refused, asked her to do it with her hand. She also detailed how the casino magnate slowly groomed her over the course of their relationship.
Wynn booked multiple appointments a week with the woman several years ago, and at one point threw his towel off and never wore it again claims the former employee.
Then, he began to rub her legs while she was massaging him, which led to the session when he allegedly asked her to finish by massaging his penis until he had achieved full release.
Chomping at the bit: Wynn (above in 2014) has denied all the allegations being made against him, saying his wife is out to get him
At the end of every session, the woman said that Wynn paid her $1,000 in cash, regardless of any extra services that may have been provided for the client’s added pleasure.
When she told Wynn that his requests made her uncomfortable he stopped requesting her for massages, and she finally told a co-worker.
She said that she did not go into specifics and just told the woman there had been inappropriate behavior.
That woman recalled the conversation, and added that she did not mention to the female employee that Wynn had also stopped requesting her when she balked at his demands for her to rub his genitals.
Shawn Cardinal, a former personal assistant to Elaine, said that in the late 1990s Wynn began contacting her outside work and demanding the two spend time together alone.
‘What are you wearing? Why don’t you hang out with me after work?’ he would ask according to Cardinal.
‘I was not brave enough to say, ‘How dare you?’ I just joked my way out of it and I made sure I was never alone with him.’
Wynn also paraded around the casino in short shorts and no underwear at time according to several employees, with workers in the spa stating that his genitals would be hanging out and on full display at times.
And he is accused of trying to get intimate with female workers he could not get alone in a room with him by kissing them in what they describe as sudden attacks that came out of nowhere.
Sweet treat: Wynn and Andrea in St Tropez in 2014 (above)
Two women who Wynn allegedly demanded kiss him said that he made these requests after they had been working for him for years, though one did also note that she had been sexually harassed multiple times before that incident.
That woman said Wynn once ribbed his partially exposed genitals while detailing what sex acts he wished to perform on her and another time called and asked: ‘So when are you going to come into my office and f*** me?’
‘The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous,’ said Wynn in a statement.
‘We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multi-year lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.’
He then accused his ex-wife of spreading false reports because of the ‘terrible and nasty lawsuit’ she has filed in hopes of getting a ‘revised divorce settlement.’
Elaine is trying to get more control over the $1.9 billion in stock she received after the pair split, while her ex is trying to keep the strong restrictions detailing what she can and cannot do with that money in place.
She wrote in her court filing that it was in 2009 when she learned of the incident involving Wynn and the manicurist, which possible led to their second divorce the following year.
Her argument is that by not telling his board about the payout, Wynn put the company at jeopardy.
That argument is problematic however given that Elaine never said anything during the five years she was on the board after learning about the lawsuit.
There they are: The Wynns attend the Senate policey luncheon at the White House on June 27 (above)
They’re back: The Wynns in the East Room of the White House exactly a month later in July (above)
Wynn is the most famous, and successful, casino owner in the world, having been behind countless properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City including the Golden Nugget, the Mirage, the Bellagio, Treasure island and now the Encore and Wynn resorts an casinos.
He is also an avid art collector and owns or has owned works by Picasso, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Monet, Jeff Koons.
In 2006, he famously put his elbow through Picasso’s La Reve while showing it to friends, just before he was set to sell it to hedge fund manager Steven Cohen for a then record-breaking $139 million.
The sale was cancelled when the story of what happened broke, and the painting was repaired at a cost of $90,000. Wynn also later sued his insurance company for failing to pay out what he claims should have been a $54million claim for lost value after he damaged the painting.
Wynn married his first wife Elaine in 1963, divorced her in 1986, remarried her in 1991 and divorced her once again in 2010, with Elaine remaining on the board of his company until 2015.
The two are still locked in a contentious court battle however, with Elaine, 73, filing papers last month asking that her husband give her access to more than $900million worth of stock she received in their divorce.
Elaine, who is worth $1.9billion, said she had handed the shares over to her husband to control after she was awarded them in the divorce ‘to help her partner of 41 years and the father of her children.’
The couple has two daughters, Kevyn and Gillian. Keyn was kidnapped in 1993 when she was 27 years old and Wynn paid $1.45million in cash from the casino vault for her safe return.
Police were later able to apprehend the kidnappers as one tried to purchase a Ferrari.
In 2011, Wynn married socialite Andrea Hissom, 54, the mother of model and singer Nick Hissom.
The pair are incredibly close with President Trump and the First Lady, and rang in the New Year at Mar-a-Lago, where Hissom wore a $13,000 Gucci dress