Adelson seeks contempt order over airing of deposition video

Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson apparently wasn't happy when he showed up on the evening news recently in a 5-year-old videotaped confrontation with an attorney.

Attorneys for the billionaire casino executive are now asking the federal court in Las Vegas to require the Las Vegas law firm Campbell & Williams to show cause why it should not be held in contempt of court, charging it appeared to have provided the video to a television station in violation of a court order preventing release of the tape.

Campbell & Williams regularly litigates against Las Vegas Sands and Adelson.

Two of the firm’s recent lawsuits were filed on behalf of nine executive security officers and a personal driver for Adelson and his family.

The suits allege the current and former employees weren’t paid overtime in violation of federal law — charges denied by attorneys for Adelson and Las Vegas Sands.

The dispute over the video erupted when Adelson’s attorneys objected to a demand by Campbell & Williams that the deposition of Adelson in the driver's case be taken at the law firm’s Las Vegas office.

Adelson’s attorneys said he objected to the deposition there for security reasons and they proposed conducting it at Adelson’s secure office at the Venetian or at the federal courthouse.

Adelson’s team said the courthouse might be a good compromise since, according to them, plaintiffs’ attorney Donald Campbell had been intimidated by Adelson's armed security officer during an earlier deposition at Adelson’s office.

In a statement to the Las Vegas Sun and VEGAS INC, a Las Vegas Sands spokesman elaborated that during the previous deposition, "Mr. Campbell lost his temper during the deposition and attempted to throw books at Mr. Adelson. At that time, security was asked to monitor the remainder of the deposition."

(A judge later ordered Adelson to appear at the law office for the deposition).

Campbell denied ever trying to throw books at Adelson and insisted he never threatened or assaulted Adelson, and to prove this he filed with the court excerpts from the videotaped 2006 deposition at issue.

The video shows that someone from Adelson’s staff put a stack of books in front of Campbell — books Campbell said weren’t needed for the deposition.

"I'm just going to put it (the stack of books) on the floor, if you don't mind,'' Campbell is heard saying.

With the camera on Adelson, Adelson said: "Put it on the table there.''

"No I don't think I will, Mr. Adelson,'' Campbell said.

"I think we'll put a stop to this deposition. If the man wants to be discourteous and throw documents on the floor. I think he ought to behave himself in a more exemplary manner,'' Adelson said.

Later, Adelson said: "I'll continue if you bend down and pick up the papers you threw on the floor — so you evidence to me that you're not as violent as you appear to be.''

Campbell said: "I didn't throw anything on the floor.''

Attorneys for Adelson, in a court filing last week, charged that it appeared that Campbell & Williams on Sept. 21 had provided the video to TV station KLAS-TV for a report on "8 News Now" that aired just a few hours after the video was filed with the court.

They said this appeared to violate a court order in the 2006 case that "that the videotaped depositions are not to be shown on YouTube, MySpace or any other similar Internet sites."

"Under circumstances which strongly suggest that plaintiffs counsel violated the terms of a prior court order by providing to 8 News Now a copy of a DVD containing excerpts of Sheldon G. Adelson's videotaped deposition, plaintiff’s counsel has refused to confirm or deny whether they provided that DVD directly or indirectly to the news station in question," said the filing by atttorneys for Adelson with the Las Vegas office of the law firm Littler Mendelson.

In responding to this Friday, Campbell & Williams didn’t address whether it had provided the video to KLAS and said in a court brief the contempt effort by Adelson’s attorneys was "ill-considered."

The law firm also said the contempt motion should have been filed in state court, where the 2006 case was litigated.

As for the video, Campbell & Williams said it "graphically demonstrated a petulant, rude and dictatorial witness (Adelson) who was treated with such courtesy and restraint by Mr. Campbell that opposing counsel actually thanked Mr. Campbell for his professionalism."

"Mr. Adelson’s company purposefully smeared Mr. Campbell’s personal and professional reputation. Now, defendants seek to hold plaintiff’s counsel in contempt of court because the publicly-filed video was later broadcast by the local CBS affiliate, KLAS-TV, and posted to its 'News Now' website," the Campbell & Williams filing said.

"But make no mistake, the source of defendants’ ire is not that an order was violated, but rather that this video publicly exposed defendants’ press release for the blatant lie it was revealed to be," the law firm’s filing said.

The judges handling the overtime case have not yet ruled on the contempt issue.