It Didn’t Stay Here: Feds say some proceeds of big L.A. Ponzi were spent in Las Vegas

Posted on by February 16, 2022
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big L.A. Ponzi

Zachary Horwitz, a/k/a Zach Avery (via LinkedIn)

See update at end of story

The feds in Los Angeles just charged Zachary Horwitz, a little-known actor whose screen name is Zach Avery, with operating a long-running $690 million Ponzi scheme. According to court filings, Horwitz, 34, falsely told investors his company was in distribution deals with big players like Netflix and HBO while using some of proceeds to fund an expansive lifestyle.

Guess where some of that expansive lifestyle supposedly took place?

Yes, if court filings are to be believed, yet another thief spent part of his ill-gotten gain in that bug light of iniquity the world knows as Las Vegas.

Horwitz, who was briefly jailed on a criminal complaint before being released on $1 million bail, has not yet pleaded to the criminal charges in the formal indictment–13 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and aggravated identity fraud. He gets the presumption of innocence.

But the allegations–brought in a criminal case by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles and a civil case by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has had his assets frozen–are more than enough to make him a candidate for my long-running list, It Didn’t Stay Here. This is a roster of folks into trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas. My list is a cheeky refutation of “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” for many years the famous promotional slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The full list can be found elsewhere on this page. Continue reading →

Autism faux charity PAC that trolled in Las Vegas spent zero on races in 2020

Posted on by April 22, 2021
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faux charityLast June in this space I wrote about American Coalition for Autistic Children after it called the New To Las Vegas world headquarters asking for a donation in support of autism efforts. A little digging by me showed it was just a name used by American Alliance for Disabled Children PAC. Yes, a PAC–a political action committee, which is not a charity at all, of course, but a conduit to make contributions to political campaigns and perhaps push a cause.

At the time AADC, which listed Orland Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb, as its mailing address, had been around for less than a year. Its financial efficiencies were dreadful, with almost all the donations going to fundraising expense rather than any worthy purpose.  Folks contributing to AADC were helping the battle against autism in no meaningful way.

I called AADC a “faux charity,” as it was a PAC presenting itself to would-be donors as a reputable good-works organization. Some, as you will see below, have used stronger language in describing such operations.

Judging from recent comments appended to the bottom of that post by Internet users, AADC is still soliciting like crazy mainly using its autism DBA, even hitting up would-be donors with dementia. And the financial efficiencies are still terrible.

How terrible? I now have reviewed AADC’s filings with the Federal Election Commission for all of 2020. AADC reported raising $1.15 million in contributions. Here’s how much AADC said it gave to political candidates:

Zero. Zip. Nada.

That’s right. Not one dime. This by simple math is an all-time low for any political action committee on record. Especially for a year like 2020, which included a hot presidential election, and races for most of Congress, too. And one thing that AADC wasn’t doing was accumulating a war chest for future elections. On December 21, 2020, it had in the bank all of $3,658.91. Continue reading →

Las Vegas hospital accused of big Medicare overbilling was co-founded by mobster linked to casino skim

Posted on by April 5, 2021
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casino skim

Moe Dalitz (courtesy Mob Museum)

Last month, a Federal Government audit said Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, a major Las Vegas health facility, overbilled Medicare by $23.6 million over a two-year period and should pay it back. In a response included in the audit itself and in a later statement, the hospital denies wrongdoing and says it will appeal.

But as a student of Las Vegas history, I find considerable irony in this accusation against Sunrise, which opened in 1958 as a high-end place. For the facility was co-founded by Morris Barney “Moe” Dalitz, a much-written-about mobster linked to the infamous Las Vegas “Skim.” That was the long-running ploy by which organized crime siphoned off casino house winnings before officially declaring profits, committing massive tax evasion against, among others, the Federal Government.

The Skim was the bug light that helped draw mob associates from all over the country to Las Vegas. It was wildly lucrative–not unlike, I suppose, wrongly billing the feds for medical procedures, if this audit is to be believed. Continue reading →

Pandemic has killed more Las Vegas folks per capita than rest of U.S.

Posted on by April 5, 2021
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Pandemic in Las Vegas

1918 Las Vegas newspaper headline

At the one-year anniversary of the national pandemic shutdown, the image-makers of Las Vegas are working mightily to lure back the visitors who have avoided Sin City like the, ah, plague.

PR types are apparently paying to fly in “social influencers” from around the country to sing the praises of Sin City.  Officials play up the cleansing efforts of the hotels casinos. VisitLasVegas.com, an official site of the official Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, even has a page linking to the sanitation policies of individual resorts.

However, one thing not exactly being stressed here is the hard fact that the overall death rate from coronavirus in the Las Vegas area is worse than the national average. True, numbers are moving in a good direction here and elsewhere. But all that scrubbing in Las Vegas has not yet produced a decided advantage.

There is an eerie parallel to what happened hereabouts during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

Continue reading →

With the Adelsons selling Las Vegas properties, what about the Review-Journal?

Posted on by March 12, 2021
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Review-JournalNow that tycoon Sheldon Adelson has died at age 87, his family-controlled Las Vegas Sands Corp. has announced the sale of its local hotel and convention properties for a whopping $6.25 billion. The only thing left with the family here in town will be the Las Vegas Review-Journal, bought in 2015 at a price so exorbitant that it prompted speculation it was purchased partly as an insurance policy to keep a lid on unflattering local coverage.

But with the Adelsons abandoning their Las Vegas operations, any need for any local insurance will pass. Which raises the question: What kind of a future does the RJ have?

This is all sheer speculation by me. But the overall problems nationally in the newspaper industry were well known even before the pandemic removed much paid advertising. Right up the road, Salt Lake City lost the daily print edition of both its daily newspapers on January 1. Here in Las Vegas I imagine there are large financial losses–the RJ‘s print circulation has dropped something like 70% in six years to maybe 70,000 now. So it’s not hard to envision a dramatic change in the paper’s ownership or operation. Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: guilty in Tacoma for spending in Las Vegas

Posted on by August 28, 2021
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spending in Las VegasSee update at end of story

Sitting in the considerable shadow of just-up-the-road Seattle, Tacoma, Wash., nevertheless is noteworthy for a couple of things. In the late 19th century it grandly styled itself “City of Destiny,” a nickname that still persists although the town never really lived up to that hype. There’s the spectacular 1940 collapse just four months after its opening of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge over Puget Sound, at the time the world’s third-longest suspension bridge. The city gets second billing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but at least it’s a major, well-known facility. With a population of 218,000, Tacoma is bigger than all but 100 other U.S. cities.

Recently, Tacoma, seat of Pierce County, was the site of a big crime. Nearly $7 million was pilfered from the Pierce County Housing Authority by Cova Campbell, the agency’s long-time finance director. It’s been called the biggest embezzlement of public funds in Washington State history.

Why, you might ask, is this of any interest to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters? I’m going to let you guess where some of the stolen loot was spent.

Yes, Campbell becomes the newest candidate for my list, It Didn’t Stay Here. This is a gallery of folks who got into trouble someplace else for something that happened in Las Vegas (in this instance, the spending of ill-gotten gain in that bug light of iniquity also known as Sin City). The roster is a refutation of “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” for many years the famous promotional slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The full list can be found elsewhere on this page. Continue reading →