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tap December 17, 1996
The Frontier hotel-casino secretly wiretapped its own phone lines amid a wave of "paranoia" over a bitter
strike, the resort's former personnel director charges.
John Patton, who left the resort in June 1993, alleged in a sworn court
deposition that Frontier co-owner John Elardi directed the eavesdropping,
which was aimed at the hotel's management and employees.
The latest allegations follow disclosures last week that Elardi also
oversaw a secret spy squad that was used against striking Culinary Union
workers during the five-year-old labor dispute.
Wayne Legare, the unit's former head, alleged the squad engaged in
dirty tricks, such as spraying strikers with a water cannon, placing
manure where they ate and stealing the signals from their hand-held
radios.
Legare said spying on the picket line was coordinated at a second-floor
command center, dubbed the "900 Room," which controlled a series of
high-tech video cameras and listening devices planted around the hotel.
The reported wiretapping was confirmed by two ranking ex-Frontier
employees who saw the recording devices in the hotel's basement phone room.
One of those sources, who asked to remain anonymous, said the Frontier
had equipment to secretly monitor numerous telephone lines at a time.
"It was there, and it was being used," said the other source, who also
asked not to be identified.
Nevada law prohibits anyone from recording telephone conversations
without the consent of one of the parties.
Patton, a 63-year-old former police officer who's battling cancer,
declined comment.
He said he was forbidden to talk about the Frontier because of a recent
confidentiality agreement settling his court case against the resort over
his 1993 departure. Patton contended in the suit he was forced out after
falling into disfavor with the Elardi family.
In an August 22 deposition in another court case against the Frontier,
Patton alleged the wiretapping was done by John Horton, an Elardi
confidante and electronics expert.
"The place became very paranoid," Patton said. "John Horton was
supposed to have been tapping the phone lines
in all the offices.
"All the department heads were upset. They were afraid their offices
were being bugged. And if we wanted to talk to anybody, we had to go to a
secure office, because we were afraid John Elardi and his friends were
listening."
When pressed further, Patton added: "They had the equipment. I know
that. And I know that they -- at one time anyway -- were wiretapping my
phone and Mike Klug's phone. That was John Elardi and his gang."
Klug, the Frontier's former director of operations, refused comment,
and Horton could not be reached.
Elardi, his brother, Frontier General Manager Tom Elardi, and longtime
Frontier attorney, Steve Cohen, did not return phone calls.
Tom Elardi last week denied the hotel had engaged in wrongdoing.
Legare, meanwhile, gave credence Monday to the alleged wiretapping,
saying Horton once informed him about it.
"I knew there was some stuff going on in the phone room," Legare said. "John Horton told me they
were attempting to 'clarify' some situations."
But Legare, who left the hotel in October 1995, said he never
physically saw the wiretapping because he rarely went to the phone room.
Legare said his activities were confined to the 900 Room, which among
other things, secretly monitored the conversations of Metro Police
officers while they viewed videotapes of the strike line inside the
Frontier.
He said his unit also recorded phone
conversations with police every time officers were asked to come to the
strike line.
While at the hotel, Legare added, police were constantly videotaped by
hotel surveillance cameras.
"We had orders to record everything whenever Metro came on the property
in case we came up with something we could use against them," Legare said.
He explained that he once put a tape together for John Elardi showing
embarrassing conduct by police, but Elardi never used it.
Footage was compiled of a Metro officer giving a female striker the
keys to his patrol car and other officers outside the nearby Fashion Show
mall beating up someone they had stopped, Legare said.
Patton, meanwhile, described more of the Frontier's reported paranoia
in another deposition he gave in his own court case against the hotel on
July 11.
He said Horton once set up a camera outside the personnel office that
with the help of a computer could capture a person's aura on film.
Patton's former top assistant, Gary Ayers, described the camera in an
interview.
Ayers said the Elardis wanted all of their employees to be photographed
by the sophisticated camera, which purportedly captured the energy fields
around a person.
The special equipment allowed for a positive identification of someone
along the lines of a finger print, he said.
Patton said in his deposition the Elardis were hoping to use the camera
to help single out strike sympathizers on the picket line.
But employees soon became irate over it -- one even threatened to go to
the FBI -- and the camera was taken down the next day, he said.
A letter later was circulated apologizing for putting it up, he added.
Things got so bad for him at the Frontier, Patton testified in the
other court case, that he once received a death threat.
He said word came back to him that one of John Elardi's bodyguards had
gotten "high on something" and was telling people he was going to kill
Patton and his wife.
Patton said he took his concerns to Tom Elardi and was told he couldn't
do anything about it because the bodyguard was "John's boy."
Another time, Patton said, someone had defecated under his secretary's
desk. The secretary discovered it while stepping in it when she came to
work in the morning.
Patton said he ultimately felt pressured to leave the Frontier.
On Monday, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa finally addressed the
spy squad revelations, saying she doesn't plan an investigation.
She said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the allegations
because her office represents the State Gaming Control Board, which has
been asked to investigate the Frontier.
Control Board Chairman Bill Bible has suggested criminal laws may have
been broken and that "appropriate" law enforcement authorities should look
into the case.
Top labor leaders and state lawmakers have echoed his words.
Legare has alleged that Frontier employees were asked to lie in court
proceedings involving the strike.
But Sheriff Jerry Keller and District Attorney Stewart Bell have shown
little interest in pursuing a probe.
Keller said he won't act unless someone files a complaint against the
Frontier.
Culinary Union leaders, however, said they have gone to police before
with complaints on the picket line and nothing was done about them.
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