Las Vegas Judge orders MGM Resorts International not to destroy evidence
LAS VEGAS – Clark County District Court Judge, Mark Denton granted a temporary restraining order last week that will prevent the destruction of records related to the Oct. 1 massacre and all evidence involving gunman Stephen Paddock.
Attorneys representing Rachel Sheppard, who was shot and critically wounded while attending the Route 91 Music Festival in Las Vegas applied on Oct. 13 for a restraining order, asking for Denton to stop MGM Resorts International from destroying any evidence related to the massacre, such as video surveillance, radio traffic and key card records.
MGM Resorts International and Mandalay Corporation filed a response on Oct. 18 that opposed the order.
“This is about answers, it’s about changing the way that we do things in this country, and that these hotels in these events protect their guests,” Sheppard’s attorney Brian Nettles said.
MGM attorneys argued that there has been “absolutely no showing that my clients are failing to comply with their obligation to preserve evidence.”
“Our concern is that before the discovery period starts, something bad could happen,” Nettles said. “That something could be altered, something could be destroyed.”
Nettles also requested that judge allow camera access to the court proceedings.
Other defendants named in the negligence lawsuit are the concert promoter, Live Nation Entertainment, the Estate of Stephen Paddock and Slide Fire Solutions LP, the manufacturer of the bump stock.
Clark County District Court records indicate that on Oct. 10, plaintiff Paige Gasper also a filed a negligence lawsuit against MGM Resorts International and the additional defendants listed in Sheppard’s filing.
Another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 30.
Doug authored over 135 articles on the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas Massacre, more than any other single journalist in the country. He investigates stories on corruption, law enforcement, and crime. Doug is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former police officer, deputy sheriff, and criminal investigator. Doug spent 20 years in the hotel/casino industry as an investigator and then as Director of Security and Surveillance. He also spent a short time with the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration. In 1986 Doug was awarded Criminal Investigator of the Year by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. In 1991 and 1992 Doug testified in court that a sheriff’s office official and the county prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence during the 1988 trial of a man accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Doug’s testimony led to a judge’s decision to order the release of the man from prison in 1992 and awarded him a new trial, in which he was later acquitted. As a result of Doug breaking the police “blue wall of silence,” he was fired by the county sheriff. His story was featured on Inside Edition, Current Affair and CBS News’ “Street Stories with Ed Bradley”. In 1992 after losing his job, at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Doug infiltrated a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont fortune heir and his wife. Doug has been a guest on national television and radio programs speaking on the stories he now writes as an investigative journalist. Catch Doug’s Podcast: @dougpoppa1