Kim Sinatra leaving Wynn Resorts
By 
Wynn Resorts is parting ways with a top executive who apparently had been aware of a $7.5 million private legal settlement Steve Wynn had negotiated with a former employee to settle allegations of sexual misconduct.
In a short, two-sentence filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Wynn said Kim Sinatra would step down as executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary on July 15. The filing said the terms of her departure had not been finalized yet.
Sinatra’s departure could play a key role in the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s suitability review of Wynn, which has dragged on for more than five months. Sinatra is a key player at Wynn, often considered the No. 2 employee at the company behind CEO Matt Maddox. She is paid $13 million a year, on par with CEOs at other gaming companies. She also played a hands-on role in landing a Massachusetts casino license, which allowed the company to begin construction of a $2.5 billion casino and hotel in Everett that is scheduled to open next year.
The Massachusetts casino license is now in doubt, as investigators for the Gaming Commission try to determine whether the company is suitable to retain its license after allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against Steve Wynn, prompting his resignation. Many members of the company’s board of directors have also left.
Elaine Wynn, Steve Wynn’s ex-wife, alleged in a lawsuit against the company that she had asked Sinatra in 2009 whether she knew anything about a settlement her ex-husband had negotiated with an employee in 2005. She claimed Sinatra told her “that Mr. Wynn had decided the matter should not be disclosed to the board or other company counsel.” Sinatra several months ago issued a statement saying Elaine Wynn had only made an oblique reference to a settlement during their 2009 conversation.
Despite the allegations by Steve Wynn’s ex-wife, Sinatra has given no indication her job was in trouble. She joined Maddox in April before the Gaming Commission to give reassurances that the company has moved on from Steve Wynn.
“There is no association with Steve Wynn. There is no business association with Steve Wynn,” Maddox said at the time. “I’m my own man. Kim Sinatra is her own woman.”
BRUCE MOHL
BEACON HILL
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Former Springfield mayor and Governor’s Councilor Michael Albano landed a job with the Board of Review at the Department of Unemployment Assistance paying $100,000 a year. (MassLive)
The Boston City Council is showing a willingness to challenge the mayor, often from the left. (Boston Globe)
A Dorchester woman said her 8-year-old pit bull didn’t deserve to have “her brains blown out” by police who shot the unrestrained dog after it charged officers “like a missile” while they were investigating a multiple shooting. (Boston Herald)
Quincy officials are closing the city’s largest public parking lot on Hancock Street for good on Monday to make way for a new 700-space garage, 15-story residential tower, and a public space. City officials are spending $1.2 million to provide valet parking and shuttle services from other lots to downtown until the new garage is open next year. (Patriot Ledger)
Provincetown’s town counsel determined three selectmen who belong to a closed women’s Facebook group did not violate the state’s Open Meeting law after a complaint by a voter said some comments indicated they may have been discussing town business without a quorum. (Cape Cod Times)
WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
Controversial EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a favorite of President Trump’s despite being under investigation for a multitude of ethics violations allegations, resigned. (New York Times) Trump tapped Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, as the interim. He will likely be the permanent successor to carry on the deregulation agenda. (National Review)
The Trump administration began reuniting children separated from parents who entered the country illegally. Just a few reunifications occurred on Thursday, but officials said 3,000 children would return to their parents by the end of the month. (Boston Globe)
President Trump, at a rally in Montana to gin up support for a GOP Senate candidate, mocked Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the #MeToo movement, criticized Sen. John McCain and ailing former President George H.W. Bush, but sang the praises of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he is meeting next week. (New York Times) Trump said he would give $1 million to charity if Warren could prove her Native American ancestry. (Boston Globe)
In an op-ed, US Sen. Edward Markey calls for person data protection ike those found in Europe. (Boston Globe)
ELECTIONS
Betsy Capeless, wife of the former district attorney in Berkshire County, urged a company to pull its advertising support of a Facebook TV show after the show’s host criticized her husband for stepping down so his deputy could take over and run for office as an incumbent. (Berkshire Eagle) David Capeless, the former DA, acknowledged his maneuvering publicly but details of how he orchestrated the power transition with Gov. Charlie Baker were first reported by CommonWealth.
The Rhode Island Democratic Party rescinded its endorsement of a Trump-supporter and former Republican over an incumbent progressive female lawmaker after a backlash against a number of controversial endorsements by the party’s leadership, including a man with a criminal conviction for vehicular homicide. (Providence Journal)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A full-fledged trade war is heating up as tariffs against China kicked in Friday with retaliatory action by the Asian country. (Wall Street Journal) But the levies are not expected to impact most of the goods and services that President Trump and his children profit from in their deals with Chinese companies. (Washington Post)
Elizabeth Rowe, the principal flutist at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, filed suit under the Massachusetts Equal Pay Law seeking $200,000 she says she is owed because of gender discrimination. (Boston Globe)
Kettle Cuisine, a soup company based in Lynn, could lose close to 30 workers if an immigration program that allows refugees to live and work in the United States as long as conditions are dangerous in their home country. (Salem News)
Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University argues for a crackdown on the tech giants — Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. (Boston Globe)
The rescue group Greyhound Friends is seeking a license to reopen its kennel in Hopkinton that was closed by the state for unsanitary conditions and resulted in a charge of animal cruelty against the group’s director. The director was found not guilty. (MetroWest Daily News)
EDUCATION
Drew Faust, the just-retired president of Harvard University, is joining the board of Goldman Sachs. (Boston Globe)
Donald Farish, president of Roger William University, died Thursday at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, just weeks after announcing he would retire next year. He had frozen tuition at the school, which was among the costliest in the nation. (Providence Journal)
Boston activist Evan Greer is calling on Northeastern University to drop its contract to do research for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE. (Boston Globe)
Middlesex Community College was ranked the No. 1 community college in Massachusetts by BestColleges.com. (Lowell Sun)
HEALTH/HEALTH CARE
Low-cost cancer clinics are shutting down around the country making it difficult for people on fixed incomes and those with low incomes to access affordable care for the disease. (U.S. News & World Report)
TRANSPORTATION
Boston transit advocates are pushing for an MBTA discount for low-income riders, possibly when fares are expected to rise next year but more likely when a new fare system is introduced. (Boston Globe)
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The Massachusetts Coalition for Sustainable Energy thinks it has found another convert in its push for additional natural gas pipeline capacity — the co-author of a 2015 report for Attorney General Maura Healey that was widely interpreted as saying a new pipeline wasn’t needed. (Boston Globe)
A Gloucester Times editorial explains why some homeowners may not really save that much from a Department of Public Utilities decision requiring the state’s utilities to pass along to their customers savings garnered from the federal tax cut.
More great white sharks are being spotted in the stretch of ocean between Orleans and Provincetown as the predators migrate further north in this year’s return to the Cape. (Cape Cod Times)
CASINOS/MARIJUANA
The Mashpee Wampanoag will enforce a federal law prohibiting marijuana on its reservation this weekend when it hosts its 97th annual powwow on the tribe’s ancestral grounds for the first time since the government put the land in trust.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
Attorneys for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are seeking to unseal an interview the FBI had with a man agents shot and killed who was a former friend and accomplice of Tsarnaev’s dead brother. Ibragim Todashev allegedly admitted Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s role in a Watertown triple murder. (Boston Herald)
A Marshfield man was ordered to give up $425,000 he earned by running an illegal sports book out of his Quincy bar after pleading guilty to running an illicit gambling operation that acted as an agent for websites run by an offshore casino. (Patriot Ledger)
MEDIA
David Simon, the creator of The Wire, says goodbye to Twitter after being banned temporarily for saying Twitter CEO Jack Dempsey should die of boils. (Observer)