Decisions complicated in Wynn defamation suit

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1997 | 10:05 a.m.

Did the catalog promotion for an unauthorized biography of Steve Wynn maliciously malign the casino mogul with false claims to push a few extra copies at the nation's bookstores?

Or was Wynn's libel lawsuit, and the resulting trial during the past two weeks, designed to punish the publisher for daring to air allegations that have lurked around the gamer for years?

The jury in District Judge Sally Loehrer's courtroom charged with answering these questions has a complicated job, and the result, whichever way it goes, promises to be controversial.

The five-man, three-woman jury returned to the Clark County Courthouse today to continue deliberations it began Monday after more than four hours of closing arguments.

Barry Langberg, Wynn's California attorney, said the jury should award Wynn millions of dollars in damages -- although he conceded the resort owner doesn't need it -- or it won't send a clear message to those who would write defamatory stories about him.

"For this case, you are the conscience of the community," Langberg said. "Wynn spent a lifetime trying to construct a gaming (empire) that is legitimate, that is the kind of place where the president of the United States will come."

Dominic Gentile, the lawyer for Barricade Books publisher Lyle Stuart, agreed that the jury is the community's conscience, but said its duty is to "determine what will be printed about the movers and shakers."

A verdict in his favor would be something of a birthday present for Stuart, who spent his 75th birthday on Monday listening to the closing arguments.

Gentile said Wynn has "already won" because battling the lawsuit has "punished" author John L. Smith, Stuart and Barricade Books.

Wynn contends he was libeled by a statement in the promotion catalogue stating that the book would detail "why a confidential Scotland Yard report calls Wynn a front man for the Genovese crime family."

The lawsuit also claims that a statement that Wynn had a minor ownership in the Frontier Hotel in the 1960s at a time when the "true owners" were Detroit mobsters is false. Yet another section suggests a connection between a Wynn friend and a now-dead Chicago mobster.

The book, "Running Scared: The Dangerous Life and Treacherous Times of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn," was authored by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John Smith, but he was dismissed out of the lawsuit before trial begin.

Smith, however, is facing an eventual trial in a libel lawsuit over the book filed by Wynn in Kentucky.

On Monday, Langberg recalled Stuart had said, as part of his often contradictory testimony, that he would have altered the ad if he had known there were inaccuracies in the Scotland Yard report.

But Smith admitted that he told Stuart that there were errors in the report, although he didn't specify what those errors were.

"Stuart didn't investigate," the attorney said. "He was as unethical, immoral and improper as a publisher could be."

A former Scotland Yard official testified during the trial that he determined the report to be unreliable and buried it in a confidential file. He fumed that it had been leaked into the hands of a reporter.

But Smith and Stuart testified that they believe the promo distributed to about 5,000 book stores and the media is accurate, although Stuart changed some of the wording for the catalogue's second publication.

Because Wynn is a "public figure" he is open to expanded public comment and the standard to prove defamation is higher.

Gentile explained to the jury that even if false information is printed about a public figure, it is not libel unless there is malice -- that it was printed with the knowledge it was false or with a reckless disregard for the truth.

"Should Stuart have been suspicious of a Scotland Yard report?" he asked the jury. "What have you heard that is critical of Scotland Yard until this report?"

While Langberg recounted for the jury the numerous ex-lawmen who refuted the suggestions of organized crime ties by Wynn, Gentile painted his defense with the broad brush of First Amendment freedoms.

"It's hard to say that Wynn was defamed when he is hanging around with the president, the governor and the mayor," Gentile told the jury.

Trial testimony showed that President Clinton attended a National Governors' Association conference held at Wynn's Mirage hotel-casino despite the allegations in the ad or even the publication of the book itself.

Wynn was praised at the trial by Gov. Bob Miller and Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, who decried the promo, although neither had read it until just before they cut their vacations short to testify last week at the trial of the man they described as a close friend.

Noting that they had been on the witness list for weeks, Gentile asked, "How did Steve Wynn know what they were going to say?"

Gentile suggested that the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions given to them influenced their testimony. And, he said, since Miller had appointed all the members of the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission, it may have influenced potential investigations of Wynn also.

"Who do you trust?" Gentile asked the jury.

Langberg chastised Gentile for attacks on the elected officials, telling the jury, "You know they have no case, no facts, no arguments when they start talking like that."

Langberg said that when the jury reads the entire ad, "everything is leading to one conclusion, that Wynn is connected to organized crime."

He charged that Stuart "fabricated" the items "to create excitement" that would sell more books and put more money in his pockets.

"Stuart could have discovered the truth but he didn't want the truth," Langberg said. "If he did not know they were falsehoods, then you can call it reckless, reckless, reckless, reckless disregard of the truth."

While Gentile charged that Wynn filed the lawsuit to stifle the publication of information about him, Langberg countered that, "No one is stifling the First Amendment."

"This case isn't going to inhibit the free press in the slightest," Langberg said.

Wynn sat with his wife, Elaine, listening intently in the front row of the gallery as the lawyers battled.

He bristled noticeably, however, when Gentile told the jury that the casino owner had "lied" to them when he smiled from the witness stand and recounted his introduction to Nevada gaming in 1964.

"He tried to treat you like a galley ship full of fools," Gentile said.

Wynn's story in Loehrer's courtroom differed markedly from the story he told to New Jersey's Casino Control Commission in 1982. The characters were the same but the person who opened the door to Nevada changed from one version to the other.

"The biggest threat here is that Wynn wants to benefit from the presumption that he was telling the truth," Gentile said.