Choi files new suit over Korean debt collection scandal

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2000 | 10:51 a.m.

Former Mirage Resorts Inc. employee Laura Choi, who was at the center of a 1997 Korean gambling debt collection scandal, filed a new lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas Tuesday alleging invasion of privacy by Mirage.

The lawsuit repeats many of the allegations Choi has made against Mirage in a suit she filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles and in a federal wrongful termination lawsuit in Las Vegas.

Named as defendants in the new lawsuit are Mirage, which has since been purchased by MGM Grand Inc., as well as private investigator Louis Curt Rodriguez, Tom Sheer, identified in the lawsuit as a Mirage senior vice president; Eugene Harding, identified in the suit as Mirage's manager of corporate security; private investigator R. David Groover and Rodriguez's company Empire Pacific Group Inc.

Choi was fired by Mirage in 1998 after her arrest and imprisonment in South Korea for violating a law against collection of large gambling debts in that nation. Mirage, admitting no wrongdoing, paid a $350,000 fine to the Nevada Gaming Commission over the incident.

Choi alleges Rodriguez was supposed to be working for her in her wrongful termination case against Mirage, but instead was secretly working as a double agent for Mirage against Choi and Mirage rival Donald Trump.

Choi claims Sheer and Harding, whom she identified as former FBI agents, directed the alleged double-cross against her and that Mirage employees hired Groover to "handle" Rodriguez in an attempt to distance Mirage from Rodriguez.

Mirage has denied any wrongdoing in its relationship with Choi.