Review-Journal Buried Wynn Report 20 Years Ago, Paper Says

LAS VEGAS, NV - Twenty years ago Nevada's largest newspaper killed a story alleging sexual harassment from one of the state's most powerful men. The Las Vegas Review-Journal published a story on Monday detailing the paper's decision to not release a reporter's story about court documents from 1998, which provide accounts of sexual harassment allegations from Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn.

The announcement comes days after Wynn was forced to resign from the Republican National Committee following a Wall Street Journal report that he harassed dozens of people.

According to the report, Carri Geer, a courts reporter at the time and current metro editor of the Review-Journal, was forced to meet with Wynn attorneys while working on a story about claims made by cocktail waitresses at the Mirage that Wynn "pressured" them into having sex. The newspaper put Geer's sources through a lie detector test, according to the report, before killing the story altogether.

Sherman Frederick, the paper's publisher at the time, told the Review-Journal that he did not recall the killed story. Thomas Mitchell, editor-in-chief at the time, told the paper that polygraph tests were sometimes used to vet information but didn't recall the instance from 1998. A polygraph examiner recalled a Review-Journal executive showing up with two women at the time, according to the report.

The court documents allege that Wynn told an employee at the time, who had recently become a grandmother, that he wanted to have sex with a grandmother because he never had before. The Review-Journal spoke to the woman, and other women who alleged harassment against Wynn, in a separate news piece also published Monday.

Geer said she was ordered to delete the story after the polygraph results were returned but she saved a printout of the story and the accompanying documents, such as the court records and receipts from the polygraph tests.

Read more from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Las Vegas Review-Journal killed story in 1998 about Steve Wynn sex misconduct claims

Las Vegas court filing: Wynn wanted sex with waitress 'to see how it feels' to be with a grandmother

Image via Lennox Mclendon/Associated Press