Casino mogul Steve Wynn preyed on female employees for decades — forcing sex on a manicurist and pressuring a masseuse to pleasure him.
Billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn preyed on female employees for decades — forcing sex on a manicurist and pressuring a masseuse to pleasure him, a new report says.
The 75-year-old Las Vegas icon’s 2005 encounter with the manicurist led to a $7.5 million pay-off, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The incident was one of several sickening episodes described by more than 150 current or former Wynn employees.
They included a wide range of inappropriate behavior:
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“Everybody was petrified,” said Jorgen Nielsen, a former artistic director at the salon.
Wynn, in a statement to The Journal, sharply denied the claims of sexual assault and other allegations.
“The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous,” said Wynn, who built the Mirage, Bellagio and several other posh casinos.
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“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,” he added. “It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.”
The bombshell report sent shares of Wynn resort tumbling more than 10% and shined a harsh spotlight on the Republican Party.
A top GOP donor and close friend of President Trump, Wynn is the chair of the Republican National Committee’s Finance Committee.
Several politicos took to social media to call on the RNC to donate the money gifted to them by Wynn.
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The Democratic National Committee, in the wake of the blizzard of Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations, gave away cash from the liberal mega-donor to a trio of non-profits.
The RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“If swift action not taken, the Wynn scandal could put some Republicans’ hypocrisy in broad daylight,” tweeted conservative commentator Ana Navarro.
Wynn’s encounter with the manicurist was referenced in broad strokes in a lawsuit brought by his ex-wife Elaine Wynn, the Journal reported.
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The unidentified woman told a colleague that, after giving Wynn a manicure, he pressured her to undress and told her to lie on the massage table he kept in his office suite.
She told him she didn’t want to have sex. She said that she was married, the Journal reported.
But Wynn wouldn’t take no for an answer, according to people who spoke to the woman afterward.
She later emerged from the room sobbing, they told the Journal.
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A court filing said Elaine Wynn, who’s locked in a bitter legal battle with her husband, learned of the “multi-million dollar settlement” in 2009.
One former massage therapist at the Wynn Las Vegas spa said the casino mogul would constantly expose himself to her while lying on the table.
The irrepressible Wynn ultimately stopped wearing a towel at all. After a few weeks, the ex-employee said, he ordered her to massage his penis.
“Don’t ignore it anymore,” Wynn said, the woman told the Journal.
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Wynn handed her $1,000 in cash after each hour-long session — the same amount he paid her before the sessions included the sex acts.
He later asked her to perform oral sex, but she refused, the Journal reported.
Dennis Gomes, a former executive at the Golden Nugget when Wynn was operating it decades ago, referenced the billionaire’s bawdy behavior in a deposition in the early 1990s.
Gomes said he “routinely received complaints from various department heads regarding Wynn’s chronic sexual harassment of female employees,” read to a court filing that summarized his testimony.
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Gomes died in 2012, but his widow Barbara recalled hearing her husband say of Wynn, “I’m not his pimp.”
Wynn, for his part, blamed the allegations on his ex-wife.
“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,” he added in his statement to the Journal.
