\nLAS VEGAS (AP) \u2013 The man who started a hospitality empire with a Los Angeles nightclub and turned the Sahara Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip into a hipper, sleeker destination is facing questions from gambling regulators for the second time this month about his cocaine use and questionable business dealings.<\/p>\n
\tSam Nazarian is expected to appear before the Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday as he seeks a gambling license he needs because he owns 10 percent of the SLS Las Vegas hotel and casino.<\/p>\n
\tNevada has long been keen on dismissing perceptions that its gambling industry is as seedy as its mobster beginnings, and the investigations into a person\u2019s background to prevent any unseemly activity from reflecting badly on the state\u2019s biggest industry can be intense.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhat he has run into is history,\u201d said Michael Green, a researcher for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas and associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tThe 39-year-old hospitality magnate faced the state\u2019s Gaming Control Board for hours earlier this month to answer questions about cocaine use that was more recent than he had led investigators to believe. The board also delved into his past business dealings, mainly repeated payments akin to blackmail that added up to about $3 million, including a $90,000 payment in 2011 to record producer Marion \u201cSuge\u201d Knight for unknown reasons.<\/p>\n
\tThe Gaming Control Board recommended 2-1 that the commission grant Nazarian a license, but with limits. It would only be good for a year, and the board recommended Nazarian have no oversight of gambling at the SLS Las Vegas, avoid associating with individuals of disrepute and submit to random drug tests, among other limits.<\/p>\n
\tWhat\u2019s ultimately approved is up the commission Thursday.<\/p>\n
\tWith Nazarian facing another likely interrogation into his past misdeeds, the company that owns 90 percent of SLS Las Vegas took a pre-emptive step and announced this week that he wouldn\u2019t have any role in the hotel and casino\u2019s day-to-day operations.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSam Nazarian seems to be doing exactly what he needs to be doing, and maybe a little more,\u201d Green said of the entrepreneur\u2019s effort to pay for his sins by publicly stepping aside. \u201cBut he\u2019s paying for a lot of sins that preceded him, and sinners.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett said he respected the move and said it represented a high-level of respect on Nazarian\u2019s part for the process.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey\u2019ve certainly got the message,\u201d Burnett said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\tAt the Dec. 3 hearing, Nevada Gaming Control board member Terry Johnson questioned Nazarian\u2019s judgment in making persistent payments to an individual Nazarian said was threatening him.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOr am I to accept that this was a shortcoming of his legal counsel that this purported barnacle, purported parasite, somehow outwitted what sounds like a century\u2019s worth of legal experience in continuing to have these financial transactions occur?\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\tMuch of that hearing\u2019s time was spent discussing payments Nazarian made to a former business associate, Derrick Armstrong, whom Nazarian\u2019s lawyers described as an unsavory individual who threatened to harm Nazarian and his family physically and in the public sphere by divulging embarrassing information.<\/p>\n
\tArmstrong said Wednesday by phone that he planned to attend Thursday\u2019s commission hearing to clear his name. He called Nazarian\u2019s statements about him lies and said he didn\u2019t extort or threaten Nazarian.<\/p>\n
\tArmstrong said the two had numerous business deals, none codified in writing, for Nazarian to back his business deals up to a reasonable amount.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cDoes it make sense that a guy would pay a person \u2026 because I was just a nuisance to him?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\tA message seeking comment was left Wednesday for Randy Winograd, a lawyer for the Nazarian family.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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