‘Girls Gone Wild’ producer pleads not guilty to theft, fraud charges
“Girls Gone Wild” producer Joe Francis pleaded not guilty Wednesday to felony theft and fraud charges over his failure to pay the Wynn Las Vegas a $2 million gambling debt.
Francis, 38, who is free on $132,500 bail, was indicted by a Clark County grand jury on Feb. 2.
The indictment alleges Francis intended to defraud the Wynn by signing a $2.5 million marker on a closed bank account during a gambling junket in February 2007.
Prosecutors contend Francis paid back only $500,000 of the $2.5 million.
When District Judge Linda Bell asked him Wednesday how he intended to plead, Francis said, “100 percent not guilty.”
Bell set a Nov. 7 trial date.
In an interview afterward, Francis accused the Wynn Las Vegas of committing fraud against him and again denied any wrongdoing.
“This is a civil dispute,” he said. “There’s been no criminal act on my part whatsoever.”
Francis also issued a news release calling the Wynn’s debt claims “false and insidious.”
“(The) Wynn casino admits I do not owe a debt, and their own internal accounting records reflect this,” Francis said in the release. “I have a history and an impeccable record of paying any accounts owed to the Wynn casino and, again, their own internal records reflect this statement.”
His Reno criminal defense lawyer, David Houston, charged outside the courtroom that the criminal case was filed against Francis to “assist the Wynn Las Vegas in its debt collection.”
Houston filed court papers Wednesday seeking to dismiss the charges against Francis on grounds prosecutors failed to present evidence favorable to Francis to the indicting grand jury.
“This case does not belong here,” Houston wrote. “It belongs in civil court. This court should not countenence casinos using the Clark County district attorney’s office as its collection agent when a patron like Mr. Francis doesn’t ‘knuckle under.’ ”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Bernie Zadrowski, who runs the bad check unit, disputed Houston’s claims.
“We don’t assist casinos in debt collection,” he said. “This is a criminal case that has the element of an intent to defraud. He wrote a check that bounced. It’s a crime to write bad checks.”
Gambling debts in Las Vegas are prosecuted under Nevada law as bad check cases, Zadrowski said.
“The arguments they’re presenting are arguments we’ve been accustomed to seeing,” he added. “They have no merit, and we will address them in our opposition.”
The district attorney’s office opened the criminal case against Francis in 2008 at the request of the Wynn, which earlier had filed suit in District Court.
Francis, who amassed a fortune producing videos of drunken college girls taking off their clothes, contended at the time that he owed the Strip resort considerably less than $2 million.
He countersued the Wynn, alleging Chairman Steve Wynn used a variety of tactics to run up his gambling losses, including supplying him with prostitutes.
Wynn issued a statement calling the allegations “scurrilous beyond imagination” and filed a defamation lawsuit, which is set for trial on Aug. 9.
Nevada gaming agents could not substantiate the prostitution accusations.
In September 2009, District Judge Michelle Leavitt ruled in favor of the Wynn Las Vegas in the civil lawsuit and ordered Francis to pay the resort the $2 million plus interest. Francis appealed the decision to the Nevada Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a ruling.
While behind bars on tax evasion charges in June 2007, Francis offered to settle the entire debt as long as the money couldn’t be traced back to him, according to the grand jury testimony of a top Wynn executive. At the time, the Internal Revenue Service had accused Francis of using offshore banks and entities owned by other people to conceal his fortune.
In his news release, Francis said the Wynn Las Vegas deposited the $2.5 million marker 17 months after it was issued to an account the casino knew had been closed by the bank.
“Wynn casino knew this marker would not be cleared by the bank,” the release said. “In our opinion this was an intentional setup to create a criminal matter from a civil case in order to shame and embarrass Mr. Francis into paying an amount of money he clearly does not owe.”
Contact reporter Jeff German at
jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.
