Former Wynn Resorts general counsel Kim Sinatra will receive more than $1.84 million in a severance agreement while her replacement, Ellen Whittemore, will receive $600,000 a year in salary along with benefits and possible bonus of up to 100 percent of her salary.
The casino operator announced the financial figures in its second quarter statement – a 10Q filing – that was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday.
Both Sinatra’s severance agreement and Whittemore’s employment agreement were attached to the filing.
Sinatra stepped down in role with the casino operator on July 15. According to the SEC filing, she will “remain available to the CEO of the company and provide advice, guidance and cooperation with respect to litigation and general corporate matters for up to 25 hours per month.”
Sinatra also agreed to “cooperate with the company and regulatory authorities regarding any outstanding matters” in which she was involved. That clause figures to include Massachusetts, where gaming regulators continue to look at the sexual misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn.
According to the Wynn Resorts 2018 proxy statement, Sinatra earned almost $13.3 million from the company in 2017, including $1 million in salary, more than $10.8 million in stock awards, and more than $1.4 million in other compensation.
Wynn Resorts is building Encore Boston Harbor, a $2.4 billion hotel-casino complex scheduled to open in 2019. Massachusetts officials have said they would be looking at what company executives and board members knew about the claims against Steve Wynn, who departed the company a week after sexual harassment allegations were raised by the Wall Street Journal.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday that a special committee of Wynn’s board finished an investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against Steve Wynn, The committee’s report will be handed over to gaming regulators in Massachusetts, Nevada and Macau who are conducting their own investigations into Wynn Resorts, the company said.
Whittemore was a shareholder in the Las Vegas law office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and has more than 30 years’ experience in gaming law in Nevada.
Prior to joining Brownstein, Whittemore operated Whittemore Gaming Group, a boutique law firm in Nevada. She previously spent 20 with the Nevada law firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins. Whittemore also served as a supervising deputy attorney general in Nevada for the agency’s gaming division.
The moves were the latest in several changes to the company’s hierarchy.
On Monday, gaming industry veteran Phil Satre was named vice chairman of the company and is expected to be named chairman by the end of the year.
Current board chairman D. Boone Wayson will step down as chairman but will remain as a board member. Satre, the longtime chairman and CEO of Harrah’s Entertainment, resigned from his current position as chairman of gaming equipment manufacturer International Game Technology.
On Tuesday, Wynn CEO Matt Maddox and former Deutsche Bank CEO Richard Byrne were appointed to the board, which gives the company 11 board members, six of whom were appointed since February.
In April the company added three women to its board – former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers, three-time CEO Betsy Atkins, and Kestrel Advisors CEO Winifred “Wendy” Webb – who joined current board member Pat Mulroy, making Wynn among the top 40 S&P 500 companies for female board representation.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
