What’s buried here, stays here: the few famous Las Vegas graves (Part 1)

Posted on by December 16, 2021
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famous Las Vegas graves

Sonny Liston memorial, Davis Memorial Park, Las Vegas

Las Vegas has been home to a lot of famous–and infamous–people. But for a place so large, prominent and buzzy, what it isn’t is the final resting place for very many household names. Reasonable folks can differ, but I count eternal homes in the Las Vegas Valley for no more than a score of persons whose fame might be said to be persistent and widespread. And that includes folks associated with Vegas’s storied organized-crime history.

One reason for this might be Las Vegas’s relative youth as a major outpost of civilization. The area’s population in 1900 was just 18 in 1900 (and you can see all their names on a single enumeration page of the U.S. Census by clicking here). Founded in 1905, Las Vegas became the largest U.S. city created in the 20th century. But as late as 1950, the metro area’s population was still under 50,000. It’s 2.3 million now. But people need time to die and be laid to perpetual rest.

Still, it might be safely said that Vegas has a fatal attraction for a certain kind of celebrity. So I have stories to tell. This is the first of an occasional series. Continue reading →

New leaders of Las Vegas fallen-cop charity vow more transparency and efficiency

Posted on by November 16, 2021
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Las Vegas fallen-cop charityThe new leadership of Las Vegas’s Injured Police Officers Fund say it will strive for more transparency and less overhead at a charity that long has shrouded its operations in ways that allowed rumors of inefficiency and unfairness to fester.

President Chelsea Stuenkel and Vice President Jesse Kommel-Bernstein told me in a recent joint interview that they’ve been educated by past NewToLasVegas.com stories about IPOF. Among other points, the stories noted that according to its public tax returns, IPOF over the past two decades on average has spent nearly twice as much on overhead as it has in official grants to fallen officers. In some years accounting expense alone exceeded grants, even though the IPOF apparently never has even produced an audited financial statement.

The pair said they would consider posting on its website the IPOF’s annual tax return, a public record that federal rules recommend but don’t mandate be so displayed, as well as the nonprofit’s by-laws, which would help explain the process for handing out grants in respect of fallen officers. Some social media posts from several years ago but still online have criticized the process as unfair, secretive and infected by favoritism. Before 2018, the annual IPOF tax return stated flatly–and by federal law falsely–the return was “not made available to the public.” Hey, I got them simply by asking! Continue reading →

Las Vegas Review-Journal circulation plummets 19% in one year

Posted on by November 16, 2021
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The Las Vegas Review-Journal is Nevada’s dominant daily newspaper. But its circulation is sinking even faster than the approval rating of President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is regularly disparaged on the paper’s conservative editorial page.

According to its own published numbers, the RJ‘s average paid print-and-digital daily circulation fell in the one-year period to late August by 19%, from 82,369 during the year earlier period to 66,525. In 2015, when the family of now-deceased billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought the paper, its circulation, all print, was a reported 232,372.  So that works out to a 71% circulation drop–nearly three-quarters, and most of it before COVID-19, which surely hasn’t helped–in just six years, despite bargain-basement subscription offers.

If you’re thinking, so what, almost all newspapers are faltering, that sadly is a fair view. But nationally, newspaper circulation since 2015 has dropped less than 50%. And the Las Vegas market population has gone up 12% over that period, compared with only a 4% rise nationally. Everyone is dealing with the economic fallout from the pandemic. So the RJ is really under-performing. Now that takes a special skill. Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: Texas regulators allege ‘illegal gambling scheme’ in Las Vegas

Posted on by November 4, 2021
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'illegal gambling scheme' in Las VegasThe Texas State Securities Board yesterday issued an emergency cease-and-desist order against a Las Vegas operation. The claim: It allegedly solicited Houston residents via social media for $10,000 investments by touting eye-popping returns from backing skilled but anonymous gamblers in Sin City casinos.

Texas Securities Commissioner Travis J. Iles said that Christopher Dino Paganelli, Paganelli Enterprises LLC and the public-facing investment vehicle AP Hedge (the AP apparently stands for “advanced player”) told investors there would be an average return of $1,000 per day, or $30,000 a month, on that $10,000 investment. The regulator in his order said the pitch was fraudulent and deceptive, failed to disclose material information, and amounted to an offering of unregistered securities in Texas. The order demanded that the parties stop dealing with Texans.

According to an official press release, which called the operation an “illegal gambling scheme,” Paganelli has 30 days under Texas law to challenge the order. I sent a request for comment to an email address listed on the AP Hedge website, which at this writing is still functioning. I helpfully attached a copy of the emergency order. I’ll update this post if I hear back.

The order specifies no total dollar amount that investors forked over, making me think this scheme may have been nipped in the bud. Also, according to Nevada state records, Paganelli Enterprises LLC only filed as a Nevada business entity on August 8, less than three months ago. And according to Internet domain records, the website APHedge.org was registered only on September 8, less than two months ago.

Plus this: Are there really that many foolhardy Houstonians out there who would believe claims of a 3,500% annualized return? Prior to becoming New To Las Vegas, I lived in Houston for seven years and did not find the population to be quite that financially un-astute.

At this point, nothing alleged has been proved. But the issuance of the emergency C&D is more than enough to make Paganelli a candidate for my list, It Didn’t Stay Here. It’s a roster of folks in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas. The list, which can be found elsewhere on this page, is a partial rebuttal to “What Happens Here, Stays Here,” the famous marketing slogan pushed by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. In fact, the slogan is so famous that the subject line of the email with the Texas press release is: “What Happens in Las Vegas Stays in Las Vegas … Unless It’s a Fraudulent Gambling Investment Scheme Targeting Texans.” Continue reading →

Mission of yet another unregistered ‘faux charity’ trolling in Las Vegas: women cops

Posted on by October 29, 2021
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faux charityOn October 1, a new Nevada law took effect requiring, among other things, that political action committees soliciting contributions in the state for the “benefit of law enforcement, firefighting or other public safety personnel” first register and file a financial statement or face penalties. Since then, judging from calls to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, the number of “faux charities” thumbing their noses at the state’s main missing-in-action regulators, the Secretary of State’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office, has exploded. A faux charity–my term–sounds like a charity but isn’t and spends most of the money raised in fundraising expense rather than on the stated mission.

The latest example was a call I received earlier this week from “Emma” seeking a contribution for what she called Americans for Female Officers, based in Washington, D.C. I use quote marks because “Emma” wasn’t a real person but a computer-generated voice using what is known as soundboard technology. Our conservation ended shortly after I asked if the cause–whose website, started less than six months ago, has a nifty logo of a female officer wrapped in a red-white-and-blue-flag–had registered with Nevada.

I’ll keep this one short. Americans for Female Officers is a name used by a political action committee, United Women’s Health Alliance PAC. Neither Americans for Female Officers nor UWHC PAC is listed as registered on online sites maintained by the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office. As I wrote here recently, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission, from its founding in August 2020 to June 30, 2021, UWHA PAC, which also solicits in Nevada using the name Ovarian Cancer Awareness Initiative PAC (also unregistered), received a total of about $825,000 in contributions, but spent $650,000 in fundraising expense. That’s a fundraising efficiency–the percent of donations remaining after subtracting the cost of generating them–of just 21%. Put another way, of every dollar given to UWHA PAC, 79 cents went straight out of door for fundraising. UWHA PAC also made absolutely no political contributions.

How many would-be donors would find this satisfactory?

I sent an email through the Americans for Female Officers/United Women’s Health Alliance PAC website seeking comment on these issues. I’ll update this post if I hear anything back. However, based on my long experience the chances of that happening is roughly the same as Sean Hannity endorsing Joe Biden.

In a state with an economy based on gambling, I’d say UWHA PAC is betting on the sad track record of Nevada’s two charitable regulators. Historically, this has been a good bet for sketchy fundraisers. Like “Emma.”

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Twitter by clicking here.

Ignoring new law, unregistered ‘faux charities’ keep soliciting in Las Vegas

Posted on by October 21, 2021
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faux charitiesThe telephone cold-caller to the New To Las Vegas world headquarters identified himself as “John.” He solicited a donation for Back Blue Lives PAC, which he described as a political action committee based in Alexandria, Va., supporting law enforcement.

“Our police officers are being defunded, demoralized and disrespected,” “John” sermonized in an impassioned pitch that sounded very much like it was coming from a charity rather than a political operative. “They put their lives on the line very day without support of many politicians … It’s time to say enough is enough. Can you help protect our police officers’ lives and rights?”

“John” was not a real person but a computer-generated voice using what is known as soundboard technology. That’s why I’m enclosing his name in quotation marks.

When I said I’d consider a contribution, “John” immediately professed his gratitude and switched me to “Mary,” another fake voice, so she could record details, like my name and address, to legally threaten me in the event I committed to a pledge and didn’t pay up. I told “Mary” that a new law in Nevada seemed to require any organization soliciting money for a law-enforcement cause to first register with the state and file a financial statement. I asked if Back Blue Lives PAC was so registered.

“That is a really great question,” Mary replied. “Let me get my supervisor.”

Her supervisor–a real person for once, but probably the person controlling the soundboard voices–came on the line. I repeated my question asking about a Nevada registration. “Okay,” she said.

Then–click. She hung up.

This is yet another example of what I call a “faux charity.” That’sa cause whose pitch on the phone sounds like it is raising money for a meritorious cause like fighting an illness or supporting law enforcement but is just a PAC spending almost all the receipts on fundraising and overhead, with organizers likely getting something on the side.

For some reason, I don’t think Back Blue Lives PAC is registered to solicit in Nevada, especially since the organization did not come up in the Nevada Secretary of State’s online PAC search or business entity search databases. And for some reason, I don’t think that Nevada regulators are going to do much about it.

Continue reading →