In other Steve Wynn legal news, his defamation suit against Girls Gone Wild producer Joe Francis is set to get underway in California this week. In February, Wynn won a $7.5m judgment against Francis over a $2.5m casino marker Francis couldn’t/wouldn’t pay. During the run-up to the trial Francis claimed that Wynn had threatened to hit him over the head with a shovel and bury him in the Nevada desert if he didn’t make with the money, which prompted Wynn to sue for slander. A key witness stated to testify at the trial is Francis’ next-door neighbor, legendary music producer Quincy Jones, through whom Francis claims he first learned of Wynn’s fiendish plot. Francis told the New York Daily News: “Steve told Quincy he would hit me in the back of head and bury me in the desert. Quincy called me and told me this a couple of times. The word ‘gangster’ did come up a few times. Quincy Jones is not going to lie for Steve Wynn. I don’t think he’s happy about testifying for Steve Wynn.” Somehow, Joe, we don’t think Quincy’s all that happy about being dragged into this legal shit-show…
Steve’s lawyers aren’t the only ones to whom he’s cutting sizable checks. Politico says Wynn Resorts donated $475k in July to the Republican State Leadership Committee – a non-profit group dedicated to aiding the campaigns of GOP pols at the state level. While Steve has reportedly donated vast sums to the GOP’s 2012 federal election campaigns, does his decision to make it rain at the state level reflect a growing recognition that hopes for a federally regulated US online poker market are fading? Earlier this month, a report by Macquaries Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon suggested as much, saying that while his outfit acknowledged that legislative efforts by individual states “could increase the pressure on the federal government to act, we think the hurdles for a federal bill in Congress are too big to overcome at this time.” Say, you don’t suppose Sheldon Adelson threatened to hit the federal bill with a shovel and bury it in the Nevada desert, do you?