Ah, Las Vegas. As I have called it here many times, a bug light for mischief. Its lure is so irresistible to so many. But beware its famous one-time marketing slogan, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” It simply isn’t true. Just review my documented inventory nearby of candidates for my path-breaking list, It Didn’t Stay Here. These are folks who got in trouble somewhere else for something that happened in Las Vegas. It’s a long roster going back nearly a decade that contains some very famous names.
The latest nominees are mainly drawn from a group of California wine industry executives recently accused of conspiring to use bribery and then cover-ups to control placement of wine products on supermarket shelves in California. By now, you can probably figure out where some of that alleged bribe money was allegedly spent. Being indicted in California for stuff said to have happened in Las Vegas is definitely trouble elsewhere.
The indictment, the cover page of which is nearby, was returned by a federal grand jury in Oakland, Calif., as part of a long-running investigation. It accuses five ex-executives of Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the country’s largest liquor distributor, or wholesaler, of what amounts to commercial bribery in providing the gifts over an eight-year period ending in 2024. The alleged idea was to get shelf space for new brands at Albertsons, one of the country’s largest supermarket chains. Although Albertsons has a number of locations in Las Vegas, it does not appear from the indictment any of the “hot wine” got placed here, or elsewhere in Nevada.
But the indictment describes several interesting journeys to Sin City.
One was on December 4, 2021. Defendants Michael Dehdashtian, 48, and Adrian Ruiz, 54–both high Southern Glazer’s executives–traveled to Las Vegas with ex-Albertsons wine buyer Patrick Briones, who has pleaded guilty in another related case, and two other employees of an unnamed winemaker seeking shelf space. Purpose, says the indictment: “to attend an NFL football game and for entertainment at restaurants and clubs.” (It’s not in the indictment, but the next day the Washington Football Team came from behind with a late field goal to beat the Las Vegas Raiders, 17-15, before a full house at Allegiant Stadium.)
The cost was $5,662.50. Ruiz then allegedly sought reimbursement from the supplier with paperwork that it was all for a “planning meeting” in Newport Beach, Calif., which does not have an NFL team.
A year later, in November 2022, Dehdashtian and Ryan Dow, 40, another Southern Glazer’s executive, arranged a trip to Las Vegas for themselves and Briones “to include luxury accommodations, golfing fees of at least $750 per person, and incidentals,” as well as $1,000 Visa gift cards. The $15,866.51 cost was to be billed to another supplier also as for a “planning meeting.”
It didn’t end there. In January 2023, Michael Sean Salene, 60, working for another unnamed winemaker in the Napa Valley, allegedly “arranged for the payment of bribes” to Briones, including cash and “an all-expense paid trip to a resort in Las Vegas … including flight and hotel expenses, and other entertainment,” and submit false paperwork for the expense, which is not specified. If the government is to be believed, Salene then lied about this to a special agent of the IRS’s criminal investigation unit. Salene is the only defendant in this case facing a fibbing-in-person-to-a-federal-agent allegation.
Southern Glazer’s and Albertsons are accused of nothing criminal. Neither is specifically named in the indictment, but it was easy to figure out their identities. Indeed, the two companies subsequently acknowledged to media outlets the defendants formerly worked for them, while somewhat depicting their corporate selves as victims of dastardly deeds.
From the online court record, it doesn’t appear any the defendants here yet have entered a plea. I assume they will all plead not guilty by the next hearing set for March 25 in Oakland. This case does not include bribery in the public sector–like what drove U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew from office in 1973–but rather extreme gift-giving among private parties. I’m guessing that if the case goes to trial, the defense will claim among other things that everyone in the liquor industry does this, and no harm, no foul.
Long before becoming New to Las Vegas, I sometimes wrote about commercial bribery cases as a journalist. Historically, they have been difficult for prosecutors to win. But this case concerns fast dealings about liquor, which the U.S. Constitution gives governments far more authority to regulate than, say, the sale of Coca-Cola. Also, a lot of folks already have pleaded guilty in related cases and might be expected to testify.
Then there are detailed receipts from the Las Vegas junkets that prosecutors will be sure to wave before the jury in the courtroom (along with, according to the indictment, mislabeled trips to golf resorts in Maui, Hawaii; Monterey, Calif., and Hobe Sound, Florida). Penalties can reach 20 years in prison on some of the counts.
So Dehdashtian, Ruiz, Briones (from his earlier plea), Dow and Salene become new candidates for my It Didn’t Stay Here list, which is displayed elsewhere on this screen. I’m leaving out Stephen Magliocco, 47, the lead defendant here, and Loratina Muscara, 64, another indicted Southern Glazer’s official. Despite a joint conspiracy charge, that’s because there’s nothing in the indictment which specifically ties these two to personal activities that happened–and didn’t stay–in Las Vegas.