Adelson won’t relinquish fight to block Palazzo club

Steve Marcus

Marc Packer and Richard Wolf are fighting a legal battle with Palazzo owner Sheldon Adelson to open a nightclub in main lobby of the resort on the Strip.

By Jeff German (contact)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Nightclub operators Marc Packer and Richard Wolf have had less than a month to savor a hard-fought legal victory over their landlord, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

With a fighting spirit and financial resources matched by very few, the 12th-richest man in the world has gone back on the offensive in his efforts to remove the New York business partners from their prime nightclub location in his Palazzo resort on the Strip.

His attorneys recently filed court papers asking District Judge Mark Denton to reverse an April 3 order granting a preliminary injunction that allowed Packer and Wolf to resume construction of the multimillion-dollar club in the main lobby of the Palazzo, which opened in January.

Adelson had changed the locks at the club and terminated Packer and Wolf’s 10-year lease March 10, alleging they were too slow in developing the still unnamed club and in providing him with detailed accounts of their business dealings for gaming regulators.

It was a startling turn of events for Packer and Wolf, who had few run-ins with Adelson while operating the wildly successful Tao nightclub and restaurant at his nearby Venetian.

But they hired the best attorneys they could find — the firm of Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner, Renshaw & Ferrario — and wound up besting Adelson and his politically connected firm, Lionel Sawyer & Collins.

Packer and Wolf had hoped they might be able to reconcile with Adelson after obtaining the preliminary injunction. But no such luck.

Adelson hates to lose.

He has intensified the legal battle, even as his hired guns at Lionel Sawyer & Collins are locked in another courtroom drama on his behalf, a civil trial stemming from a lawsuit filed by a Macau businessman who wants a piece of Adelson’s growing gaming empire on the Chinese island hot spot.

Adelson, who testified earlier in the trial, has spared no expense in that case, which has been unfolding in the courtroom of District Judge Michelle Leavitt. He brought in combative Houston lawyer Rusty Hardin, who has a reputation for representing high-profile clients, and he persuaded the old lion himself, Sam Lionel, who rarely makes court appearances these days, to sit beside Hardin.

For Packer and Wolf, it’s just more evidence that they are in for a long battle with Adelson.

•••

For a while, it looked as though former Clark County Recorder Fran Deane was going to strike a plea agreement with prosecutors to avoid an embarrassing criminal corruption trial.

There even was a media report about it.

But when Deane showed up in the courtroom of District Judge Valorie Vega last month, she surprised prosecutors by backing out of the deal.

Deane was charged with misconduct and theft in June 2006 and ultimately removed from office at the request of District Attorney David Roger.

Her trial has been reset for Dec. 8.

•••

Former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo has been out of federal custody for only a month, but already there are rumblings on the street that he’s wielding influence at another topless nightclub.

Rizzolo reportedly had a say in the club’s hiring of two of his former senior managers.

The FBI, if it hasn’t heard the rumblings, will find this interesting because under his 2006 criminal plea agreement with the government, Rizzolo is barred from returning to the topless club business.

Rizzolo, through one of his attorneys, Mark Hafer, strongly denies involvement in any strip club.

Hafer says his client’s only interest in the business these days is rooting for the government’s efforts to finalize the sale of the Crazy Horse Too so he can pay off his debts.

“He intends to quietly serve out the terms of his probation,” Hafer says. “He’s not going to do anything to jeopardize his freedom.”

Jeff German is the Sun’s senior investigative reporter.