THE PLOT THICKENS
Nevada regulators eye Steve Wynn’s ex-wife
The regulators going after casino mogul Steve Wynn for allegedly having sex with staffers are also asking questions about his ex-wife, Elaine, sources tell The Post.
The Nevada Gaming Commission, which has moved to ban Wynn from the state’s gaming industry, has recently started interviewing “witnesses” about what Elaine knew and when, according to people with knowledge of the questioning.
The interviews have focused in part on 2009, when Elaine claims she first learned about a $7.5 million settlement that her now ex-hubby hammered out after being accused of rape by a Wynn Resorts manicurist, sources said.
According to an April report by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Elaine did not tell the Wynn Resort’s board about the manicurist’s 2005 allegation or the ensuing settlement — despite being a Wynn Resorts director.
Instead, the report said, she told the company’s general counsel, her divorce lawyer, a former board member and others. One of the people she told, the former human resources chief of Wynn Las Vegas, then told Elaine about Wynn’s “history of unethical/ inappropriate and possibly illegal behavior,” the report said, adding that Elaine took notes from that meeting.
One person interviewed by the commission last week said he felt the commission’s questions were aimed at uncovering Elaine’s motivation for withholding the information from her fellow directors.
“For Elaine to sit on this for her own purpose would be pretty shocking,” the source said.
Massachusetts regulators declined to take action against Elaine, who has argued that she told the company’s general counsel about the 2005 settlement.
Elaine declined to comment for this story, but a person familiar with her thinking told
The Post that the state’s gaming authority appears to be conducting “an ordinarycourse investigation” into major casino shareholders.
Elaine, who divorced Wynn for a second time in 2010, is no longer a Wynn Resorts director. But she‘s the casino operator’s largest individual shareholder, with 8.9 percent of the company’s stock, worth about $1.15 billion.
Steve Wynn and Elaine, who first married in 1963, cofounded Wynn Resorts in 2002. He exited as chairman and CEO in February 2018, following a Wall Street Journal exposé involving Wynn workers who accused Wynn of years of sexual misconduct.
The story triggered multiple probes, resulting in a $20 million fine by the Nevada Gaming Commission in February 2019 followed by a $35 million fine by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in April.
In October, the Nevada commission went after Wynn personally for “a pattern of ... recklessly engaging in sexual conduct with subordinate employees.” The commission is seeking to bar him from gaming in the state.
Wynn, who has denied any allegation of rape or “nonconsensual” sex, has argued for the case to be dismissed, saying they can’t bar him because he’s already left.