The Daily Beast Calls Him A “Pervy Predator”. Steve Wolfson Calls Him “A Friend” Of “Many, Many Years”.
There’s an expression that goes: You can judge a man by the company he keeps. If that’s the case, the friendship between Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson and disgraced hotel magnate Steve Wynn is vital information for Las Vegas residents judging how un-seriously Steve Wolfson takes sexual assault allegations.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently asked District Attorney Wolfson about why he still accepts major campaign donations from Mr. Wynn, to which Wolfson responded: “Mr. Wynn has been a friend for many, many years. He’s been a supporter of my campaigns for many, many years.”
To Wolfson, he’s a friend. To others, he has a different kind of reputation. The Daily Beast called him a “pervy predator.” A spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party labeled him “A grotesque sexual harasser.” Meanwhile, the far right publication, The Washington Examiner, dubbed him “a prolific sexual predator.”
Wynn is, as the Daily Beast describes it, “accused of sexually predatory behavior by dozens of low-level hotel and spa workers” including in Las Vegas. The The Wall Street Journal describes the allegations against Mr. Wynn as “a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct.” The Las Vegas Review-Journal pointed out that these allegations include the crime of “rape.” Despite the fact that these allegations span many years and dozens of women who have no clear relationship to each other, Wynn denies all of them. “The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous,” Wynn told The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Wynn’s denials notwithstanding, it’s Steve Wolfson’s job to investigate and prosecute crimes like the ones Wynn is alleged to have committed. Thus, one could understand why Las Vegas residents have looked at Wolfson’s long friendship with Wynn, and his sizeable campaign contributions to Wolfson, and concluded that the women who have accused Mr. Wynn of sexual misconduct might not get a fair shake from Steve Wolfson.
Now, if you were Steve Wolfson, you might just give back the money. After all, if people are accusing you of an incurable conflict of interest, giving back the money at least symbolically gestures that you care about being perceived among the people whom you’re elected to serve as fair and impartial. Consider that even Republican Members of Congress refused to keep Mr. Wynn’s campaign contributions even though he was “President Donald Trump's handpicked choice” for Republican National Committee finance chair. The extremely conservative Washington Examiner wrote that, “Trump shouldn't just cut ties with Wynn — he and the entire RNC ought to return all of his money.” These are all people who, unlike Steve Wolfson, who purports himself to be a Democrat by the way, are not responsible for investigating and prosecuting Wynn’s alleged misconduct.
Wolfson’s warm embrace of Wynn arrives at a time where he is facing multiple connected scandals. The first involves allegations that Wolfson gives special treatment to the wealthy and well-connected, especially those who, like Mr. Wynn, have made (or whose lawyers have made) sizable campaign contributions. For example, Wolfson gave a billionaire a “sweetheart deal” with no jail time after he was caught with a suitcase full of drugs including meth, heroin, and cocaine.
The second scandal involves allegations that Wolfson treats sexual assault victims with disdain. Wolfson’s personal law firm website, which was up and running as recently as October 2020, provides a glimpse into his perspective on sex assault cases. “Sex crime allegations are not always true and accurate and are oftentimes false accounts,” Wolfson’s website read. Moreover, as a private criminal lawyer earlier in his career, Wolfson represented a bus driver who beat, raped, and fondled multiple 13-year-old girls. Even though Nevada law clearly states that a child under 16 can never consent to sex with an adult, Wolfson, according to The Las Vegas Review-Journal, told the trial judge: “From what I gather, most of these acts are consensual anyway.”
Let’s put Mr. Wynn’s case aside. Even in a case where a person is clearly guilty and that person has not given gobs of cash to Wolfson’s re-election campaign, with views like these, could Steve Wolfson be trusted to get justice for sexual assault victims?
That’s a hard question to answer given the black box that Wolfson has erected around his decision making on cases involving sexual assault allegations. In fact, Vegas Watch filed a public record request for information about how Wolfson’s prosecutors are trained to handle sexual assault cases, but Wolfson refused to turn the records over. Vegas Watch also requested any written policies that the District Attorney’s Office maintains for charging and prosecuting sexual assault cases, but, Wolfson’s office told us there are no written policies for handling sexual assault cases.
But for anyone still searching for the answer, you could do worse than returning to Wolfson’s own recent statement about Steve Wynn: “Mr. Wynn has been a friend for many, many years. He’s been a supporter of my campaigns for many, many years.”