Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake - RC17C03E8160
Las Vegas business mogul Steve Wynn is being accused of sexual harassment and assault by several former employees at his Wynn properties.
In a detailed reported in the Wall Street Journal, more than 150 people spoke about the 74-year-old business man and dozens accused Wynn of being sexually inappropriate.
The most egregious of the allegations comes from a manicurist who claims Wynn forced her to have sex with him in 2005. According to her account, after giving Wynn a manicure, she said he pressured her to remove her clothes and to lie down on a massage table in his private suite. The manicurist said she told Wynn that she was married and didn’t want to have sex, but she did as she was told.
After the encounter, the women filed a detailed report with the hotel’s supervisor and the casino mogul later settled a lawsuit over the incident, reportedly paying the woman $7.5 million dollars.
Wynn denied that he has been sexually inappropriate.
“The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous," he told The Journal. “We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multi-year lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.”
But a former massage therapist, who worked at the Wynn Las Vegas years ago, said that the hotel owner would book multiple private message appointments with her in his office suite, where he would intentionally adjust his towel to expose himself. During one appointment Wynn reportedly told her of the towel “just get this thing off of me.”
During another session with Wynn, the former employee said she was instructed her to massage his penis to climax. The woman said she felt obligated to do so because he was her boss. She said at the end of each hour-long massage session, she was paid $1,000 in cash – the same rate she had always been paid for the massages.
According to the Journal, some former employees admitted that they would enter fake appointments in their books to help other workers avoid Wynn’s inappropriate requests.
“Everybody was petrified,” said Jorgen Nielsen, a former artistic director at one of the hotel salon.
Nielsen explained that he, along with others, tried to report Wynn’s behaviors to high-level company executives, but “nobody was there to help us.”
The Journal reported many of the people the newspaper interviewed were nervous when speaking about Wynn's behavior for the fear of potentially damaging future job opportunities in Vegas.
Currently, Wynn is engaged in a messy split from his wife, Elaine Wynn, a co-founder of Wynn Resorts and ex-board member.
Elaine Wynn is currently involved in a messy split from Steve Wynn. (Reuters)
She has claimed her husband “recklessly exposed the company and other directors to liability” while making the settlement with the manicurist back in 2005 and not notifying the board.
According to the Journal, Wynn’s wife said she discovered the settlement in 2009.
Wynn blamed his ex for the influx of allegations stating, “the instigation of these accusations is the continued work of my ex-wife Elaine Wynn, with whom I am involved in a terrible and nasty lawsuit in which she is seeking a revised divorce settlement.”
In addition to building the luxury Wynn and Encore resorts on the strip, Wynn also built the Mirage, Treasure Island, and the Bellagio.
Wynn is also someone President Trump has called "great friend" and following the election Wynn was named the Republican National Committee’s finance chairman.
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