http://vegasmagazine.com/personalitie...ed-in-vegas-gotta-call-david-chesnoff
| | It’s 3 am in Las Vegas.
Whatever the day of the week, it’s a sure bet that somebody, somewhere, is getting into trouble. Maybe it’s drugs or assault or drunk driving. It could be an altercation in a casino or a misunderstanding with a prostitute inside a fancy hotel suite. If it’s the right person in the wrong spot, then you can wager your last dollar on one thing: David Chesnoff will receive a phone call and rouse himself from a deep sleep. He’ll get dressed, slip behind the wheel of his Dodge pickup truck, and race to the scene. That might be preceded by phone calls, to a casino’s attorney or a prosecutor or maybe an investigator who should start taking statements before anyone else does. As everyone from Bruno Mars to former HBO chairman Chris Albrecht can tell you, if you must get into trouble in Las Vegas, be sure to have Chesnoff on speed dial.
For more than 30 years, he has been a go-to lawyer for all manner of wise-guys, outlaws, rule breakers, drug dealers, rock stars, and marquee celebrities who like to push the limits. Now Chesnoff, a partner in the firm Chesnoff & Schonfeld, has decided to open up on a long, colorful, storied career. A bear of a man, with pushed-back hair, Coke-bottle glasses, and a forthright demeanor, he is dressed down in jeans and a long-sleeved Harley T-shirt on the afternoon when we meet in his large, memorabilia-filled office—with signed photos of satisfied clients and friends as varied as Hells Angel Sonny Barger and Britney Spears. Approaching 60, living comfortably on a multi-acre horse property with his wife, Diane, and moving easily through the highest levels of Vegas society, Chesnoff nonetheless still has sharp elbows. His ability to assess a situation remains second to none.
He first hit town in 1980, a recent graduate of Suffolk University Law School in Boston, standing six feet tall and weighing 145 pounds. He had already served a brief stint with a large firm in Texas, and he arrived just at the right moment—the tail end of the days before everything went corporate. Many major organized-crime cases went down in Vegas during the early ’80s, and Chesnoff experienced his share of them.
David Chesnoff
If you’re a celebrity in hot water, this is the profile you want to see by your side.
Starting out under attorney Dominic Gentile, Chesnoff quickly found himself placed on cases with attorney (and future mayor) Oscar Goodman. “It was a 24/7 city,” says Chesnoff. “There was lots of action, guys from back East mixing with Western cowboys, and I got comped everywhere I went. I was eating at Dome of the Sea, the Sultan’s Table, Villa d’Este. That’s when I started not being 145 pounds.”
Thriving on the vibrancy of Vegas, Chesnoff found his place among the schemers and dreamers and geniuses the city has always attracted. “Nobody treated me like a grown-up yet. I was the kid who everybody called Chessie. I was like a rookie who played for the Yankees. Early on, I got introduced to Morris Shenker. He had been Jimmy Hoffa’s lawyer and part owner of the Dunes”—purchased with money from the Teamsters union’s pension fund. “He was in trouble with the feds, on a major bankruptcy fraud case, and I eventually became his lawyer. When Mr. Shenker died, he was still under indictment, and I called the prosecutors to get the case dismissed. They wanted proof of his death before they would dismiss. That tells you how intensely they were after him.”
Shenker directed a lot of business to Chesnoff, and before he knew it he was representing some of the most notorious people in America. There was Wayne Matecki, a reputed enforcer and alleged member of the Hole in the Wall Gang (they got their name because they robbed jewelry stores and the like by entering through walls and ceilings), and he worked on cases involving Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, the inspiration for Joe Pesci’s wildly violent character in Casino. Stories have circulated about Spilotro terrorizing business people with shakedowns and organizing cheating rings against poker players. It leaves me wondering if Chesnoff was intimidated by The Ant. “I knew him, and he was not scary at all, not to me,” says Chesnoff, who recalls celebrating Thanksgivings and a birthday at Villa d’Este, where Spilotro was a frequent presence. “He was very intelligent and a gentleman. I knew him personally and professionally, and he accepted me even though I was young and new to Vegas.” There was no trouble collecting from criminal clients? “I got paid up front. And if somebody stiffed me, I chalked it up.”
David Chesnoff
The signed memorabilia filling David Chesnoff’s office is evidence of his many satisfied clients, from a pop princess to a former heavyweight champ.
When Jimmy Chagra, reputed to be one of the world’s leading marijuana kingpins, found himself in trouble, he turned to Oscar Goodman, and Chesnoff worked with parties involved in the case. At the time, Chagra was notorious for his sky-high gambling. He would walk onto the Las Vegas Country Club golf course carrying shopping bags full of cash and compete in matches in which putts could be worth half a million dollars. Rumor had it that Chagra was intentionally, and publicly, burning through his money, trying to establish himself as a high-stakes gambler in order to lay tracks for a money-laundering gambit.
But Chesnoff doesn’t believe that was the case. “He was a huge gambler who had access to large sums of money,” he says, “I am confident that he wanted to win his bets.” Although Chesnoff worked hard for seemingly dodgy characters, he managed to have some fun with them as well: “I once went to a party at Caesars Palace. I want to say it was in the Rain Man suite, but it was definitely in a suite like it. It was a wild party, with women and partying and people carrying on. I like to describe it as a cross between Scarface and The Hangover.” Chesnoff is quick to mention, though, that he didn’t spend much time socializing with his clients: “Guys would have their wild parties, they’d invite me, and I’d tell them that I couldn’t go, in case everyone gets in trouble and you all need me. In truth, I was working extraordinary hours.” It’s a work ethic that resulted in bravura closing statements and countless cases won. Clients embraced him because he found innovative ways to prove them innocent. His reputation grew exponentially.
Through it all, however, didn’t he realize that many of the people he represented were actually guilty of what they were accused of? “Except when you win,” Chesnoff says. “Then they’re not guilty.” He hesitates for a beat, then adds, “I believe in our system. When somebody notorious gets protected, that is how it should be, and it protects everybody. When things are corrupt and rules are not applied, that’s when I see the country in trouble.”
David Chesnoff
Chesnoff with his client Alistair Overeem, a UFC fighter who tested positive for high testosterone levels, before the Nevada State Athletic Commission in 2012. Overeem was suspended for nine months.
As Las Vegas evolved, so did Chesnoff. The mob was driven out of town and his practice changed. He got involved in cases arising from major marijuana, hashish, and cocaine seizures. “Vegas was a hub for drug [deliveries] because it’s a 24-hour city, there’s a lot of money in town, and you can get to a lot of places from here,” says Chesnoff, who explains that the nature of the business made for some weirdly humorous scenarios. In one cocaine case, he says, “some of the drugs were in a small casino-hotel called the Continental, which is no longer there, and they busted the airplane coming in. I represented a guy involved in that case for a long time and didn’t even know his real name. Now he’s out of jail and living in Colombia.”
He also represented poker pro Mike “The Mouth” Matusow on a drug charge. “Mike was in deep trouble,” Chesnoff says. “He wound up going from facing state prison time to a very short sentence in the jail downtown”—where Matusow still managed to lose a six-figure sum by placing sports bets with bookies on the outside. “His whole life would have been unfairly different if I hadn’t been able to convince the court that this was really aberrant behavior on his part and that he really wasn’t a drug dealer.”
Chesnoff established himself as a favorite of poker stars, advising Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, and the late Chip Reese, among others. When Jamie Gold won the World Series of Poker in 2006, there was a dispute with a card-playing TV producer who claimed to have been promised half of Gold’s winnings; Chesnoff went to bat for the producer and the suit was eventually settled. After poker great Phil Ivey enlisted Chesnoff to represent him in his 2009 divorce, the line at the hold’em tables was that Ivey had hired the Phil Ivey of attorneys. These days, every casino boss in town has Chesnoff flagged on his iPhone. “I get calls from casino executives to help big customers of theirs, and it isn’t to help because they want to see the guys go away,” he says. “Casino management understands that people are in Vegas and things will happen."
David Chesnoff
Chesnoff with Terrance K. Watanabe, charged with owing $14.7 million to Caesars Palace and Rio, in 2009.
Such was the case when he received a middle-of-the-night wake-up regarding a high roller from Hawaii who had just been arrested in a casino for overdue markers around town. “I got to see the guy in jail, I got him out, and we got him put on electronic monitoring in one of the hotel’s gorgeous suites with a butler,” Chesnoff recalls. “Eventually I got the case dismissed and he was back in action.” I half-joke that it sounds like a whale’s dream come true, but Chesnoff isn’t laughing when he responds. “The casino executive wanted to keep the customer, but there was also an open-mindedness that just because you get accused of something, that doesn’t mean you did it. That attitude comes from the fact that, historically, casinos had people involved with them who were on the edge. A lot of people who make up the original community of Las Vegas understand the perils of closed-mindedness, whether they’re Jewish or Italian or Latter-day Saints.”
Reinvented beyond the wildest dreams of the city’s great pioneers, by the start of the 21st century, Las Vegas was a magnet for young Hollywood, superstar athletes, some of the prettiest girls on the planet, and the well-heeled trendsetters who gravitate to that universe. For Chesnoff, it’s only been good for business. He had already made a name for himself among LA attorneys via a series of high-profile cases there—a courtroom artist’s rendering of Chesnoff and controversial rap magnate Suge Knight hangs in the lobby of the US District Court in Los Angeles—and he was an obvious person for celebrities to call when they got jammed up in Vegas.
As for Knight—the alleged former Bloods gang member whom Chesnoff kept out of jail after the state charged him with battery in 2008—the attorney maintains a favorable view. “The whole world has an opinion on Suge Knight, but I don’t have that opinion,” Chesnoff says, adding that he remembers Knight from his days as a defensive end with the UNLV football team. “I recall being in Miami for the Super Bowl, and Suge was in town with Snoop Dogg. He called to ask me to get him a table for 15 at The Palm on the night before the Super Bowl. I managed to do it, but he canceled and still asked me to get seven steaks and seven lobsters to go. He and his guys ate in the car, but he wouldn’t stiff the place. He and I never had an issue. Part of that is because I always kept my word to him. He’s an amazing guy.” But didn’t Knight once hang somebody by his ankles out an office building window? “I never believed that story. It’s like an urban legend. So said his attorney.”
David Chesnoff
With Paris Hilton, who pled guilty to drug possession, in 2010.
After Christian Slater’s wife was accused of bottling him at the Hard Rock, Slater’s agent called Chesnoff to help out. For the record: “Christian’s wife was delightful.”” Mötley Crüe vocalist Vince Neil benefited from Chesnoff’’s legal skills in a series of situations involving alcohol and driving, mostly. “Vince is a great guy,” says Chesnoff. After master illusionist David Copperfield was accused of sexual assault, Chesnoff and his investigators found people who would impugn the woman’s allegations. “In my opinion, this girl was not to be believed,” Chesnoff says. “For months at a time, I did nothing but work on this. We went to where this girl was from; we were with people who met her; we were everywhere. I believe that David was 100 percent innocent and saw that the impact of this investigation could unfairly derail the most successful entertainment career on the Strip.” No charges were ever brought against Copperfield, due in part, colleagues say, to Chesnoff’s work on the case.
When, in 2010, Paris Hilton was caught with a small amount of cocaine in her purse, she knew to reach out to Chesnoff. “Paris was nervous,” the lawyer recalls. “It’s frightening to get arrested. But she was reasonable, did her community service, and took it seriously. Paris is sophisticated and she realized that the gaming authorities were very serious about problems taking place inside the casinos’ nightclubs.” While Hilton avoided jail time, the attorney who prosecuted her was busted while buying cocaine two years later and Chesnoff received an unexpected windfall of positive exposure. Clark County District Attorney David Roger was running for reelection against Don Chairez, who aired a commercial showing that Chesnoff had donated $10,000 to Roger’s campaign in 2009, followed by a shot of Chesnoff leading Hilton out of the courthouse, having escaped a jail sentence. “They played ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ like I had walked her out of it,” Chesnoff says with some amusement. “Chairez lost the election, and it turned out to be $300,000 in free advertising for me.”
Less of a stroll was getting Mike Tyson sprung from a 2006 DUI charge in Arizona. “I said, ‘Mike, here’s the deal. The sheriff and DA want to put you back in prison for serious time. The only way it will work is if you listen to me.’” Tyson did listen and went through the necessary rehab and counseling. “We got Mike into a position where he got probation instead of prison.”
“I love that man. He turned my life around,” Tyson says of Chesnoff. “Every lawyer was talking to me about doing time. David put in the work and really cared. Working with David was like training for a fight. He put together a team and we put our feet to the pedal. We did all the work. I did so much community service without being told to. I went to rehab. David got me cleaned up and I was not the guy who got arrested. He gave me life skills. If I got seven years then, I would have been finished. There would have been nothing for me. I am very grateful that he is in my life.”
Clearly, Chesnoff enjoys riding in like the cavalry. He sees it as his duty to preserve the rights of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And he’s gone from representing the Spilotros and Mateckis of the world to the Tysons and the Hiltons, where the gray areas can be even grayer. But he insists that one thing remains constant in Vegas—and it’s among the most valuable assets he brings to combustible situations. “The nature of the connections you need is still the same,” says Chesnoff, looking happy about that. “No matter who you’re dealing with, you go right to the top. Everything happens at the top in Las Vegas.” |
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