On Tuesday, one of the most prominent lawyers in the US told the Nevada Supreme Court that justices shouldn't make any public statements about cases, adding that a Las Vegas judge who oversees the lawsuit involving Sheldon Adelson should be forced to step aside for committing such act.
According to Las Vegas Sun, Nevada's top court is being asked if a political group defamed casino mogul Sheldon in 2012 via an ad that was posted on the internet, alleging that Sheldon used prostitution-tainted money from the casinos in Macao to finance the Republican presidential campaigns in the nation. A lawyer for a fired former casino executive in Macau countered that the judge did not commit any wrongdoing.
The trial is currently scheduled for June 27 in a case that might be aired about how Las Vegas Sands developed its lucrative interests in the Chinese gambling enclave. However, chief executive Steven Jacobs and former lawyer of Sands China, Todd Bice, said the schedule was effectively frozen pending ruling by Nevada's highest court.
During oral arguments held in Las Vegas, Bice said that the casinos don't want a public trial and a public airing about what they did and what was going on in Macau. A central question during Nevada Supreme Court Oral Arguments was whether point-and-click hyperlinks on the internet are comparable to footnotes on a printed paper, reports Macau Daily Times. Sheldon Adelson did not come to the hearing where Todd Bice accused the billionaire of unleashing unlimited resources and pressing for the ejection of Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez to try to derail the case.
ABC News reported that the high court is requested to overrule an administrative decision made by a judge that Gonzalez didn't exercise bias by answering questions from a Time magazine reporter for the January board titled, "Meet the Judge at the Center of Sheldon Adelson's Strange Deal to Buy a Newspaper."
Judge Gonzalez has clashed several times with Adelson's defense attorneys in the Jacobs case. She placed a fine to Las Vegas Sands in 2012 for deceiving the court and not turning over documents as required to Jacobs and his lawyer. In 2015, she placed a fine on Sands China $250,000 for similar violations.
