By Steve Miller,
former Las Vegas City Councilman

In 1993, my radio program began being picked up on stations from coast to coast. The program was being aired on WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut just at the time when Wynn was trying get licensed to invest one billion Nevada-made-dollars in a casino there. Coincidentally, a story broke on the front page of the RJ detailing how Wynn had comped members of the "five families" at the Mirage. I had Jon Ralston and John L. Smith, who were reporting the events, on my program to discuss the incident. Their appearances generated numerous calls from New England listeners. When the Connecticut legislature turned Wynn down, he publicly named and blamed me for his failure at a meeting of the Conn. Chamber of Commerce. Wynn immediately threatened to sue me, my partner Russ Driver, and the stations carrying the program. His attorney offered a way for me to escape the lawsuit: to go off the air. I had no other choice. No one in Las Vegas media came to my defense, or later to the defense of John L. Smith.

Wynn's attorney Terry Jones called me in April 1993, to say that Wynn would not sue me if I canceled my radio show. I did immediately and the threatened suit went away.

The station owner later tried to sue me for supposedly getting him into trouble with Wynn, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. After my program went off the air -- with no local explanation or press coverage -- I became a celebrity of sorts outside Nevada because Wynn kept rapping me in interviews back east.

Hilary Waldman of the Hartford Courant and Anna Verzi of the Bridgeport Post flew to town to interview me, as did a CBS TV news crew from Chicago. I was amazed at what these reporters told he had said regarding my radio program and its supposed effect on his extra-Nevada plans!

After Hilary Waldman appeared on KLVX TV's Nevada Week in Review, Kathy Hanson, then with KTNV Ch. 13 News, called me about what happened. Kathy ask me a bunch of questions, but later told me that her local story was killed. Wynn merrily kept on using my name as a scapegoat for his failures to place casinos in West Dundee, Ill, Hartford, and Bridgeport, Conn.

He even reportedly tried to blame me when his scheme was thrown out of Vancouver, BC! He refused to take responsibility for his own checkered past catching up with him and squelching his extra-Nevada casino plans. Later in 1993, the Scotland Yard report was anonymously sent to John L. Smith and myself. I'm sure glad I didn't write a book about it or I would have ended up in the same shoes as Smith and Lyle Stewart.

The many news stories outside Nevada about Wynn blasting me inspired the Reverend Tom Grey to enlist my help in the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion. To my amazement, the RJ article below was the only local news coverage of this event.

Steve Miller

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Las Vegas Review Journal
Friday, April 22, 1993

Radio host ordered to halt on-air criticism of Wynn

By Ken White

Steve Wynn flexed his legal muscle on another front this week. The target: talk show host and former City Councilman Steve Miller.

Miller, who has called Wynn a hoodlum on his show broadcast weekdays over KLAV-AM can no longer mention Wynn's name on the air. And neither can any one else on the station because of an order by station owner Dave Wagenvoord.

The gag is in response to a letter received Tuesday from Wynn's attorneys. Wagenvoord said the letter, dated April 13 and signed by attorney L.T. Jones, stated that Wynn "was displeased with what they said were personal attacks by Steve Miller, and threatened to challenge the station's license renewal, which comes up in five years.

Miller says he isn't backing down. "If this continues, I'm going to file a civil rights action (against Wynn)," Miller said. "He's violating my First Amendment rights. I consider him a coward and a hoodlum, and that's what I've been calling him. I'm very concerned about why Mr. Wynn would be concerned about my program."

Miller who buys the air time for his show, has criticized Wynn for his attempts at getting legalized gambling in Hartford, Conn. "I want Wynn to invest money here, not take it out of state," Miller said. "That's the thrust of what I'm trying to do."

On Tuesday, Wagenvoord responded to Wynn's attorneys' letter with one of his own. "I feel the program has a right to address issues involving Mr. Wynn, who in my opinion is a public figure" Wagenvoord wrote.

Wynn asked for a chance to respond to Miller's charges, and Miller has offered equal time to Wynn, the letter said. Wagenvoord also offered air time to Wynn. "Please let me know how much time you consider fair and equitable... In my opinion, Mr. Wynn's political and financial clout can literally put us out of business, so we are agreeing to censor from the hosts' standpoint so Mr. Wynn perhaps will agree to let us stay in business.

"By the way, would your client be interested in buying KLAV radio? As owner and licensee he would have total control over both the host and the callers."

Jones could not be reached for comment on the letter. Alan Feldman, spokesman for the Mirage, said the station, is "being very smug about the whole thing."

He called the letter "meaningless" if Miller continues to attack Wynn. Wagenvoord said his station "has no ax to grind with Mr. Wynn. I'm not afraid of him, but I'm a realist."

According to Wagenvood who also owns stations in Monterey, Calif., and Hawaii, over the past month his station has received "an awful lot of phone calls from government agencies" about various business matters.

He said a man from the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Government regulatory agency overseeing radio and television, made a surprise inspection of the station Friday.

Feldman confirmed that the Mirage has hired an attorney for advice on the FCC, but that the inspection was not instigated by Wynn. The FCC has not been contacted by Wynn's attorney about KLAV, Feldman said.