ecutive on recordings says casino staff members are a ‘family’; doesn’t directly address sexual-misconduct allegations
Casino mogul Steve Wynn, facing allegations of sexual misconduct, spoke to Wynn Resorts employees and urged them to have pride in the company. In recordings reviewed by the WSJ, he recalled an exchange with Donald Trump about the "Access Hollywood" recording. Photo: Reuters
By Chris Kirkham, Elizabeth Bernstein and Rebecca Ballhaus
Feb. 2, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET
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In a series of meetings with his Las Vegas casino personnel in recent days, casino mogul Steve Wynn urged employees to rally to his side following sexual-misconduct allegations against him, according to audio recordings of the meetings made by participants.
Mr. Wynn, the chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd. WYNN -2.31% , didn’t directly address the allegations against him, according to the recordings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Instead, he stressed that he considers his employees a “family.” In difficult financial times in the past, he said, “we were a family. It wasn’t every man for himself. And that family culture has made us great.”
Mr. Wynn on the recordings questioned how the company would have such a good reputation if there were a culture of sexual misconduct. The company’s good reputation, he asserted at one meeting, “could not exist if we had predators running around…it would never be possible.”
The company is ranked No. 361 out of 500 in Forbes’s ranking of the America’s best employers.
The Journal article last Friday described accounts of a pattern of alleged sexual misconduct described by dozens of people who have worked for Mr. Wynn. They included an allegation that Mr. Wynn in 2005 paid a $7.5 million settlement to a manicurist who told people at the time that Mr. Wynn forced her to have sex with him.
Michael Weaver, a Wynn Resorts spokesman, said Thursday, “Cherry-picking comments out of a 20-minute extemporaneous conversation doesn’t reflect the general tenor of the meeting.” He added that “in a week in which the company and Mr. Wynn have received significant media coverage, he wanted to reassure and show his appreciation to employees.”
Mr. Weaver said Mr. Wynn didn’t directly address the allegations because that was “not the purpose of the meeting.” He added that the conversation also described how 40% of the company’s top executives are women, and that two of the four highest-paid executives in the company are women.
Fallout from the Journal’s story has rippled through the casino industry and the political world. Mr. Wynn stepped down from his post as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee last weekend, and regulators in Massachusetts, Nevada and Macau, along with the company’s board, are investigating the allegations. Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, called the allegations in the Journal article “deeply troubling” during a Wednesday hearing about that state’s casino license for Wynn Resorts.
According to the recordings of the Las Vegas employee meetings, Mr. Wynn reminded employees that during the last recession his company didn’t lay off employees as other Las Vegas Strip operators did.
We “kept our insurance and our jobs so we could manage our families,” he said. “That’s the way a family reacts to hard times.”
He added: “I called this meeting because I wanted you to all remember that no matter what you may read or hear about me.”
He also said the company has “always trusted, respected and honored women,” not just lately “because it’s fashionable or that’s the topic of the season.”
In another of the employee meetings, a recording shows, Mr. Wynn recounted a dinner he shared with Donald Trump in the week before his inauguration last year in which the president-elect asked him to take the RNC’s top finance post.
During that dinner, Mr. Wynn said, he recalled telling the president-elect: “It’s unbelievable how you pulled this off.” Mr. Trump replied: “If I knew it was going to be this tough, I wouldn’t have done it.”
According to Mr. Wynn, Mr. Trump then recounted his reaction following the October 2016 release of an audio outtake from an Access Hollywood episode, in which Mr. Trump made lewd comments about groping women, prompting condemnation from members of both parties. “It was so scary. When those tapes came out, I almost died,” Mr. Wynn recalled the president-elect saying.
Mr. Wynn added, addressing the employees: “I know the feeling.”
Following the release of the Access Hollywood recording, more than a dozen women made allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Trump. The White House’s official position is that those women aren’t telling the truth. A spokesman for Mr. Trump didn’t return a request to comment on Mr. Wynn’s recollection of the conversation.
On one of the recordings, Mr. Wynn told employees he had stepped down from his RNC post “because of all this publicity” and said he didn’t want to “disrupt” the party’s activities. He praised the tax legislation Mr. Trump signed last December and told those assembled, “You guys are going to love it.”
At the end of one meeting recorded on Wednesday, he stressed how Wynn Resorts was a special place to work and asked attendees if “you all still feel that way? In spite of what you hear about me?”
Attendees laughed, according to the recording, with some saying “yes.”
“Good. Just so long as that doesn’t bug any of you I’m happy, and I’m happy if you’re happy,” he said. “Your jobs will be secure, and your incomes will increase, and you’ll have a chance for a better future as this company grows and moves ahead.”