{"id":1746,"date":"2010-01-05T11:40:39","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T19:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=1746"},"modified":"2010-07-23T09:42:25","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T17:42:25","slug":"an-open-letter-from-fred-frazzetta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/an-open-letter-from-fred-frazzetta\/","title":{"rendered":"An open letter from Fred Frazzetta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of you, I’m certain, remember Fred Frazzetta<\/strong>, a heroic Nevadan who essentially sacrificed his career to blow the whistle on Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong>‘s cavalier attitude toward building regulations (and, one might add, customer safety<\/a>). He sent S&G<\/em> the following, in response to a Suzette Parmley<\/strong> profile of Don Marrandino<\/strong>, who’s now BMOC for Harrah’s Atlantic City<\/strong> and Pennsylvania<\/strong> casinos and racinos.<\/p>\n

“I caught your article regarding Don Marrandino<\/a>, and I wanted to take the time to fill you in on a few things that took place while Mr. Marrandino was President of both the Flamingo Hotel<\/strong> & Harrah’s Hotel & Casino<\/strong> in Las Vegas<\/strong> <\/span>… things I am sure that neither Don or Harrah’s want to talk about.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Have you followed the plight of Harrah’s and their now well documented illegal remodels in Las Vegas? I am the whistleblower, Fred Frazzetta and I want the world to know what Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. did because their numerous criminal acts were willful. Harrah’s illegally remodeled multiple properties here in Las Vegas without permits being pulled as required, and therefore no inspections. Every room that Harrah’s touched was found to be unsafe for the public to stay in, and we are talking about thousands of rooms. To add insult to injury Harrah’s also exposed their construction workers, hotel employees & hotel guests to ASBESTOS, a known carcinogenic during the course of many of their illegal & some legal remodels intentionally & willfully! I tried to get Harrah’s to fix their screw-ups, but they wanted nothing to do with it, as they felt that no one in this town would listen to me, and for almost a year and a half they were right. I had a meeting with Don Marrandino in his office at the Flamingo, Debi Fetzner<\/strong> the VP of Human Resources for both Harrah’s & the Flamingo was also present. Don Marrandino met with me because he wanted to see what type of person I really was, as my internal memos were rather strong. About ten minutes into our meeting, Don said to me: “You know Fred, if this were the old days we might be handling this a little differently.” I smiled, and told Don that it wasn’t the old days … I am not so sure anymore. We discussed the illegal remodels & asbestos exposure, but when I tried to show Mr. Marrandino the documentation that I had he refused to look at it stating: “I do not want to be holding my arm up in court.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"harrahs-pic\"<\/em>“Don Marrandino was, at the time, President of both Harrah’s Hotel & Casino <\/em>[left] & the Flamingo – he was well aware of the illegal remodels, as were: Tom Jenkin<\/strong>, Kirk England<\/strong>, Marilyn Winn<\/strong>, Mike Nasby<\/strong>, Tom Adams<\/strong>, Mike Whitehead<\/strong>, Leon Vermillion<\/strong>, George Kirkwood<\/strong>, Robert Bruna<\/strong>, Chris Lubera<\/strong>, Skip Matthews<\/strong>, Jim Taysen<\/strong>, Shane Jacobs<\/strong>, Keith Adams<\/strong>, Brian Riley<\/strong>, Harold Long<\/strong>, Jason Spisak<\/strong>, Reggie White<\/strong>, Beth Cookson<\/strong>, Tommy Cookson<\/strong>, Brad Johnson<\/strong>, John Alcott<\/strong>, Jeremy Farnan<\/strong>, Travis Matthews<\/strong>, Eric Quinterro<\/strong>, Steve Weems<\/strong>, Mike Weems<\/strong>, etc. etc., and I would be remiss to not mention the licensed contractors that helped Harrah’s: Ford Contracting<\/strong>, Siemens<\/strong>, Wood Resources of Nevada<\/span> Inc<\/strong>., Statewide Fire Protection<\/strong>, and T-Nicholas Co Inc<\/strong>. Two Unions were instrumental in providing labor to Harrah’s and they were The Teamsters Union<\/strong> and the [L<\/strong>]ocal<\/strong> 501 Operating Engineers<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Don Marrandino’s legacy here in Las Vegas depends on which side of the fence you are on. I was exposed to asbestos multiple times, mold, uncontrolled dust, fiberglass fibers, and God only knows what else. From my side of the fence Harrah’s has no excuse for what they did, and because it was done intentionally over & over again I believe Harrah’s should be criminally charged. Some legacy: intentional illegal remodels and asbestos exposure … yeah Don is a real stand up guy!<\/em><\/p>\n

“Sincerely,<\/em><\/div>\n
Fred Frazzetta<\/strong>“<\/em><\/div>\n

\n<\/em><\/div>\n
That’s what’s called kicking ass and taking names.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of you, I’m certain, remember Fred Frazzetta, a heroic Nevadan who essentially sacrificed his career to blow the whistle on Harrah’s Entertainment‘s cavalier attitude toward building regulations (and, one might add, customer safety). He sent S&G the following, in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,28,7,95,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4166,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions\/4166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}