Disturbing details about the reclusive and strange life of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock have now emerged in unsealed court documents from 2013.
In the testimony, made as part of a slip-and-fall suit, he admitted to gambling up to $1 million a night – saying the sum isn’t a large amount of money – and said he was on Valium, a drug that can cause aggression.
He also boasted about spending ’14 hours a day, 365 days a year’ playing video poker in 2006, usually at night, CNN reported.
When asked if he ever went out, he said: ‘I don’t do sun.’
Stephen Paddock (pictured) testified in 2013 that he was taking Valium prescribed by a doctor who he paid a retainer to for easy access. The drug can cause rages and aggression
The remarks were made in a deposition after Paddock (circled) sued the Cosmopolitan Hotel in 2012 for a slip he had the year before. He’s seen here in CCTV footage just before the slip
Paddock (fallen, in circle) tried to sue the casino for $100,000, but his claim was thrown out. He also told the court he gambled 14 hours a day, 356 days a year at peak, in 2006
The 97-page court deposition was created as part of Paddock’s $100,000 lawsuit against Cosmopolitan Hotels & Resorts, after he claimed to have slipped on a puddle in its namesake hotel.
In it, he claimed to have no mental health issues or addiction problems.
However, he did admit to having a doctor who supplied him with Valium – also known as diazepam – for ‘anxiousness’.
‘He’s like on retainer, I call it, I guess,’ Paddock said of the doctor. ‘It means I pay a fee yearly … I have good access to him.’
It’s not clear how much he took, or how regularly; he told the court he had 10-15 pills left in a bottle of 60 prescribed a year and a half earlier.
But the drug can cause aggressiveness and rages in some people if they have unresolved issues, Dr Mel Pohl, chief medical officer of the Las Vegas Recovery Center, told The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
‘If somebody has an underlying aggression problem and you sedate them with that drug, they can become aggressive,’ Pohl said.
‘It can disinhibit an underlying emotional state. … It is much like what happens when you give alcohol to some people … they become aggressive instead of going to sleep.’
Whether Paddock had such problems is something the FBI’s profiling teams in LA and Las Vegas are still trying to determine.
In a statement to the public last week, Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, 62, said that she ‘knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, caring, quiet man’.
However, it emerged over the weekend that Paddock had a darker side; a Las Vegas prostitute told The Sun that Paddock paid her $6,000 a weekend to take part in S&M sex acts.
Paddock was particularly into roleplaying, the unnamed woman said, including tying her up and asking her to act out rape fantasies.
It’s not clear whether these might indicate any kind of underlying aggression that could manifest through Valium.
The doctor who prescribed the drug was identified by the Review-Journal as Dr Stephen P Winkler.
Winkler’s office refused to confirm or deny whether Paddock was a patient, citing patient confidentiality rules, which persist even after death.
Paddock also said he had a concealed weapon permit in Texas, but otherwise there was little discussion of guns.
Elsewhere in the deposition, Paddock – who made millions in real estate and was known as a ‘big fish’ gambler according to his brother – paints a picture of himself as an unusual ‘high-roller’.
He talks about how he would walk around the casinos in black flip-flops and sweat pants – and would carry his own drinks so he didn’t have to tip waitresses.
However, he said, he didn’t like to drink because ‘at the stakes I play, you want to have all your wits about you, or as much wit as I have.’
Paddock would play video poker (file photo) hands of up to $1,500. He’d sometimes spend as much as $1 million a day, he said – but thought that wasn’t much money
Those stakes, he said, could see him losing $100-1,350 at the push of a button – and sometimes saw him gambling up to $1 million a night.
‘That’s a lot of money,’ the lawyer said.
‘No it’s not,’ Paddock replied.
Paddock filed the suit in 2012 after he claimed to have slipped and fallen on a wet floor, citing ‘Negligence – Premises Liability’.
Video footage showed Paddock’s fall in the Cosmopolitan – but also a number of other guests and staff walking over the same area without apparently noticing any puddles or danger.
The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in late 2014.