HUSHED UP

Las Vegas Review-Journal Killed Wynn Sexual-Misconduct Story in 1998

Years before WSJ exposed allegations, Vegas paper squashed its own reporting on it.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal killed its own report on sexual-misconduct allegations made against casino mogul Steve Wynn back in 1998, the paper reported Monday. According to the newspaper, officials “stopped publication of a story that would have brought the issue to light” and “ordered the reporter who wrote it to delete it from the newspaper’s computer system.” This decision came after Wynn’s lawyers met with the reporter. In a 1998 court filing, a cocktail server at the Mirage claimed that “waitresses were sent to sexually ‘accommodate’ high rollers at the resort’s luxury villas throughout the 1990s.” Another server alleged that Wynn pressured her to have sex with him. These two women underwent polygraph tests paid for by the paper. After the reporter Carri Geer—who is now metro editor at the Review-Journal—was ordered to delete the story, she saved a file of the story printout, court documents, and polygraph results. Geer says she does not “recall who blocked publication of the story or who ordered her to delete it.”