‘Bambi’ hoax perpetrator, Vegas reach agreement

Lynn Doan

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 | 10:33 a.m.

The man who once received international coverage for his creation of "Hunting for Bambi" ended his high-profile battle against the city of Las Vegas on Tuesday with only a few local reporters present.

Michael Burdick boasted a trail of reporters and protesters when his business first gained speed last summer. But while pleading guilty to conducting business without a license and misinforming a public officer in Municipal Court on Tuesday, Burdick glanced behind him only to be greeted by rows of empty benches.

As part of the settlement, Burdick acknowledged that the paintball hunts were only an advertising strategy and were never available. He also apologized for any embarrassment that he may have caused Las Vegas.

"The attention span is shorter in our society," Hal Rothman, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of several books about Las Vegas. "Something unusual happens, it catches everyone's attention for a brief second, and then something else happens, and it's gone."

Even a business as unusual as "Hunting for Bambi," pitched as an opportunity for men to pay up to $10,000 to shoot naked women with paintball guns, is not enough to demand the attention of Las Vegas for long, Rothman said.

"It wasn't a story of any real significance, so it came and went," he said.

Burdick's attorney, Craig Mueller, said the lack of media coverage at the hearing on Tuesday was partially the city's fault, which he said kept "putting off and moving the case."

Mueller also said that the charges against Burdick did not live up to the hype of the business he ran, which led the media to drop away.

"It was a great catch line because he's shooting naked women with paintballs, and everyone likes naked women," Mueller said. "But they were very tedious charges, and they were not even about the business."

Originally, Burdick was charged with doing business in excess of a license, obstruction of justice and providing false information to a public officer.

However, the city agreed to drop the two counts of obstructing justice if Burdick pleaded guilty to the rest of the charges and paid $1,105 in fines and assessment costs.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said that Burdick's apology was the only part of the settlement that he "buys into completely."

Goodman said he also believed that the original media coverage of Burdick's business was worth the hype.

"He was a very convincing conman, and the public has to know about guys like him, and then when they're caught they become wimps," he said.