Sunday, March 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.
One of the more bizarre stories unfolding at the Regional Justice Center is a legal fight between Triple Five Nevada Development Corp. and its former general counsel, Andrew Rankin.
You may recall that Triple Five, a politically connected shopping mall developer, attracted media attention in 2006 after former County Commissioner Erin Kenny testified in federal court that she had been getting $3,000 a month under the table from the company, a charge the company denied. Kenny is now in prison.
On March 6, Triple Five filed suit against Rankin, seeking to recover a $1 million investment account the company’s chairman, Eskandar Ghermezian, had put in his care.
Rankin, who could not be reached for comment, resigned March 4 after three years in the $250,000-a-year position, refusing to let company officials gain access to the investment account. He presented the company with what he claimed was a secret agreement with Ghermezian that entitles him, not Triple Five, to ownership of the money in the account.
Ghermezian and other company officials swear in affidavits that the agreement is bogus. They acknowledge Ghermezian ordered the money be turned over to Rankin in August so he could invest it in the stock market, but they insist the money was to remain with the company.
Just what’s happening in the case at the moment is unclear.
On March 10, Triple Five attorneys informed District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez that they were working to settle the lawsuit, so the judge rescheduled a hearing on whether to grant the company a preliminary injunction against Rankin.
But at that hearing Tuesday, neither party showed up to argue the matter, leaving the judge in limbo.
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A former Harrah’s Las Vegas engineer has alleged in a federal lawsuit that the casino negligently exposed him and other employees to dangerous asbestos during a 2006 remodeling project.
Ernie Savannah, who filed the suit himself Wednesday, charged that Harrah’s put his health and that of others at risk and created a hostile working environment among maintenance workers. He also accused Operating Engineers Local 501 of not going to bat for him after he was laid off by the casino last month.
Savannah, who said he was a “night watchman” for the casino, is seeking to get back the job he held for four years. He contended his bosses forced him to fire Harrah’s whistleblower Fred Frazetta, an electrician who had complained about the asbestos and a series of alleged county building code violations at the casino.
Savannah charged that company managers waited until workers had remodeled eight floors of a hotel tower in 2006 before informing the workers that asbestos was in the ceiling.
A hostile environment was created at the resort because managers appeared unconcerned about the dangers of the asbestos exposure, Savannah alleged.
He said he believes he was laid off because of concerns he raised about asbestos and his unwillingness to fire other employees who complained about it.
Harrah’s spokesman Gary Thompson said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
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Most of the complaints about leaks at the Regional Justice Center are related to the media obtaining inside information about cases, judges and attorneys.
On Wednesday morning, however, the problem was a real leak, on the third floor. The flooding it was causing forced courthouse personnel to turn off the water most of the day on all but the bottom three floors.
No water meant no bathrooms could be used on floors 3 through 17, which created more than a few inconveniences for the public, as well as the judges and other courthouse employees.
Jurors in trials on the upper floors looking for a bathroom break, for example, had to travel down to the lower levels. On some of the higher floors, people ignored the closed-bathroom signs and used them anyway, clogging up toilets.
At one point, a mini-flood on the third floor forced officials to shut down an elevator or two and the well-traveled escalator leading to the first-floor lobby.
By midafternoon, court administration officials came within minutes of ordering the building closed.
But the leak was repaired by 3:50 p.m., and all was back to normal — just in time for most of the building’s occupants to call it a day and head home.
Jeff German can be reached at 474-7406 or at german
@lasvegassun.com
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