It Didn’t Stay Here: Unlicensed pilot flew jet to Las Vegas

Posted on by May 26, 2017
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It Didn't Stay Here

Falcon 10 turbojet (via Wikipedia)

When Orville and Wilbur Wright made their famous first powered flights at Kitty Hawk, N.C. on December 17, 1903, they didn’t have pilot licenses. No such things existed. But since 1927, every civilian pilot in the U.S. has had one. For nearly a century it’s been a federal criminal act to operate aircraft without proper permissions.

Which brings me to one Arnold Gerald Leto III. He was just sentenced in Los Angeles federal court to hard time after pleading guilty to piloting aircraft without the correct license. Since I am New To Las Vegas, you probably know where I’m going with this. One of those flights, in a Falcon 10 turbojet like the one pictured nearby, was to the bright lights of Sin City.

So Leto gets a nomination to my list, It Didn’t Stay Here. It’s devoted to examples of people getting in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas. It’s a counter-argument, of course, to that catchy pleasure-seeking marketing slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: Prison for NY pet pound staff who spent stolen funds in Las Vegas

Posted on by May 24, 2017
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It Didn't Stay HereLike pet shelter organizations everywhere, the Central New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals seeks homes for unwanted four-legged creatures and raises public awareness about abuse and neglect.

But the CNYSPCA in Syracuse is unusual in one big respect. Paul Morgan, its former executive director, and Taylor Gilkey, an ex-staffer identified as his on-and-off girl friend, recently were sent to prison for embezzling more than $800,000 to pay for, among other things, gambling junkets to Las Vegas. That’s money that could have helped a lot of dogs and cats.

Morgan and Gilkey are hereby nominated to my new list, It Didn’t Stay Here. These are people who get into trouble elsewhere for something that happened in that bug light called Las Vegas. My list is a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal of that famous Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority slogan, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” The names of all nominees can be found elsewhere on this page along with, by clicking on their names, their sad stories. Continue reading →

I had to file a public record request for my Las Vegas water usage

Posted on by May 18, 2017
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Las Vegas water recordsAs a journalist for nearly a half-century, I literally have filed hundreds of freedom of information act/public records requests to get documents from government agencies. In cases decades apart and quite separate, I got the secret testimonies to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and later-to-be-fugitive-financier Robert Vesco.

I obtained proof of Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover’s jealousy about all the attention the 1960s TV show “The Untouchables” gave to rival lawman Eliot Ness, and how the agency monitored the personal life of secretly gay actor Rock Hudson. I showed the odd FBI surveillance of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe (whose name was misspelled in agency reports every single time), the poet John Ciardi and sports editor Lester Rodney of the Communist Party daily newspaper the Daily Worker. I even used disclosure laws to get dog-attack records from the U.S. Postal Service (along with an apology for illegally not providing them faster).

But no request I ever filed was quite as strange as the one I made recently after becoming New To Las Vegas. I was forced to draft and send a formal plea under the Nevada Public Records Act to get my own water records.

I am not making this up. Read on. Continue reading →

It Didn’t Stay Here: Pa. official hit for okaying trip to Las Vegas Mirage

Posted on by April 17, 2021
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It Didn't Stay Here

Mirage Resort (via MGM Resorts International)

I guess when you live in  hardscrabble northeastern Pennsylvania–especially the area around Easton–any trip to Las Vegas by government workers on the public dime can look suspect. Amy Trapp, the HR director of Northampton County, Pa., of which Easton is the county seat, is on the hot seat for $2,343 spent by two of her workers to fly to Las Vegas, stay at the fancy Mirage Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and attend a training seminar.

Although it doesn’t seem that any rules were broken, the trip has caused a political brouhaha far from Las Vegas. So I’m nominating Trapp for my new list, It Didn’t Stay Here. The list–a play on that great Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketing slogan, “What Happens Here, Stays Here“–consists of folks having problems somewhere else for things that happened in Vegas. Earlier nominations can be found elsewhere on this page. Continue reading →