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Matthew Maddox, CEO of Wynn Resorts, was he as helpless as he claims?
This is one of the questions that the Massachusetts Gaming Commission must answer, because she wonders if the company that has almost finished building a new casino in Everett is able to keep it.
Serious doubts have been expressed since January 2018, when the Wall Street Journal unveiled multiple allegations of harassment and serious sexual misconduct against founding CEO Steve company had concealed.
Sitting before the commissioners at last week's hearings, Maddox said he did not credit the charges against Wynn at the start of the news. Instead, Maddox said he initially thought that the dozens of people interviewed by the Journal were all lying to help Wynn's ex-wife, Elaine, who was in bitter conflict with the casino mogul.
Rejecting as many credible claims would have been pretty bad in the past years. But doing so in 2018 seems like a remarkable denial feat – or dishonesty. It was several months after allegations of sexual assault and harassment by producer Harvey Weinstein finally credited women alleging abuses by powerful men, a cultural advance that initiated the movement # metoo.
Maddox, then chairman of Wynn Resorts and his future CEO, who was close to his boss personally, said he had denied the facts.
"I know how ridiculous it seems," Maddox told the commissioners.
No kidding. Incredible would be another catch. Maddox had already heard of Wynn's disturbing behavior towards his employees, but he does not seem to have found them very disturbing. Wynn, 77, who has been out of the business since then, said that any sexual contact with employees, including those with whom he had paid bylaws, was consensual.
Maddox apparently believed it, at least in the beginning. This is partly because his colleagues who knew more had prevented him from staying out of the loop, he told regulators.
"What does that say about your leadership," asked Commissioner Gayle Cameron. Maddox said that those who were protecting Wynn would hide the truth from Maddox because he is "known as a very straight arrow".
"One, they can go around," said Cameron, one of the many panelists who raked Maddox on the embers. The very right arrow, however, prevented anyone from allowing the spying of a former employee cited in the Journal article, although Maddox said that he was would be better expressed later.
The CEO has a lot to rethink and regret. He said that he deeply regretted not taking the allegations seriously at first, but what credit can we give to his contrition? He says society has changed fundamentally, with new leaders understanding it and policies to keep workers safe.
But why should we trust him as an agent of change? If we take him at his word, he has no complicity in concealing the misdeeds of Wynn, so he seems to have been terribly disconnected. Does a business run by a person so easily include the kind of people you want to manage with a $ 2.6 billion casino? Especially when the hopes of so many people in the Commonwealth depend on its success?
Ultimately, it is these hopes that will save the casino Everett for Wynn Resorts. The best argument for allowing the company to retain its lucrative license is now presented, not by Wynn officials, but by the Shangri-La amber who has climbed on the Mystic River – and the thousands of workers who plan to work there in June.
It was always like that it was going to be, once the license granted and the beginning of the work. The commission can demand the departure of Maddox and extract a heavy fine from the company, as had Nevada. But there is no possible return.
It must be asked at this point if other shoes will fall. But the commissioners have no choice but to make it work.
They – and the rest of us – play at the Wynn Resorts table. They must continue to roll the dice.
Yvonne Abraham, columnist for the Globe, can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ GlobeAbraham.
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