Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is grilled in court about Macau ‘beheading plot’
Adelson brands query about business ties with organised crime leader 'inappropriate'
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has been questioned in a Las Vegas courtroom over how much he knew about gangland threats to behead employees of his company in Macau.
The billionaire chairman of the Sands and Venetian resorts in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore was testifying on Tuesday at proceedings that mostly focused on jurisdiction arguments surrounding the wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former Sands China chief Steven Jacobs.
Adelson asked Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez to block as inappropriate a question from Jacob's lawyer, James Pisanelli, about dealings with Hong Kong businessman Cheung Chi-tai.
Cheung, an investor in a publicly traded company that handled so-called junket gambling tours to Macau, was identified in a US Senate report in 1992 as a high-ranking gang figure. He was also named in 2011 by a Hong Kong appeals court as an organised crime leader who ordered the death of a Sands Macau casino dealer.
Cheung was not charged in connection with the case but a subordinate was convicted of a murder conspiracy charge. Cheung is wanted by Hong Kong police in connection with a separate investigation and earlier this year failed to turn up in court to answer a summons.
"Your honour, Mr Pisanelli is making erroneous - intentional, but erroneous - statements that we were doing business with Cheung Chi-tai," Adelson said. "We were not doing business with Cheung Chi-tai, therefore the question is completely inappropriate."
The judge clarified that the question was whether Adelson, as chairman of Las Vegas Sands and Sands China, would be aware of death threats against his employees.
Adelson said he and his company were always looking for "appropriate and inappropriate activity" at their properties and continued to protest.
"He asked me about somebody with whom we are doing business," he said. "We are not doing business with him, and therefore I can't answer.
"If somebody is going to chop my employees' heads off, of course I would be interested. But he wasn't. And we weren't doing business with him. It feeds their narrative of, 'Only Adelson is involved in wrongdoing, not Jacobs'."
Gonzalez is being asked to decide if she has jurisdiction to hear Jacobs' civil lawsuit, which contains allegations of misdeeds at Macau properties Jacobs ran.
Jacobs alleges that his firing in Macau was orchestrated from Las Vegas.
