Encore Boston Harbor

Pledging that the company has undergone a “transformation” since Steve Wynn left the last year while embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations, Wynn Resorts on Tuesday set out to convince the Massachusetts Gaming Commission that it remains suitable to hold the lucrative Boston-area casino license despite its failures to act on allegations of rape and sexual misconduct by its namesake.

Encore Boston Harbor, Wynn Resorts’ roughly $2.5 billion casino project in Everett, is set to open in June if the commission determines Wynn Resorts is still a suitable operator.

The Gaming Commission on Tuesday morning released the long-awaited findings of its Investigations and Enforcement Bureau’s year-long investigation, which revealed that some former Wynn Resorts executives knew of allegations of rape and other sexual misconduct against company founder Steve Wynn, did not take steps to address them and, in some cases, actively worked to cover them up.

“Wynn Resorts is a different company,” the organization declared in documents that lay out the changes at the company since Steve Wynn departed. “Any employee who was aware of allegations of sexual assault against the company’s founder and did not investigate or report is no longer with the company.”

The IEB report details the allegations made by a Wynn Las Vegas manicurist who reported to her supervisor in 2005 that Steve Wynn had raped her and that she was pregnant by him. That allegation was passed to Marc Schorr, then the Wynn Las Vegas president and CEO and COO of Wynn Resorts, who informed Steve Wynn. There was no internal investigation and a settlement of $7.5 million between Steve Wynn and the manicurist was “structured for utmost secrecy,” the IEB wrote.

There was also a $975,000 settlement to resolve a 2006 allegation from a former Wynn Resorts cocktail server who told the company’s human resources chief that she had “wrongfully engaged in a sexual relationship” with Steve Wynn. There was no internal investigation of that allegation, the IEB said. Another cocktail server who had been fired sent a demand letter to a Wynn Resorts attorney in which she alleged an “intimate relationship” with Steve Wynn in 2008. There was no internal investigation and the parties agreed to a $700,000 settlement, the IEB said.

Steve Wynn has denied allegations of non-consensual relationships but in a statement initially given to a Wynn Resorts special committee investigating the allegations, he said he “had multiple consensual relationships during my tenure at Wynn Resorts and made no attempt to document them.” Steve Wynn did not agree to be interviewed by Gaming Commission investigators either under oath or on a more informal basis, the IEB said.

Matt Maddox, who replaced Steve Wynn as the gambling empire’s CEO last year, told the commission Tuesday that Wynn Resorts is a new company and detailed changes to its executive structure and board of directors, and updates made to company policies.

The company’s board is entirely new and all the executives identified in a Nevada Gaming Board report as having had knowledge of Steve Wynn’s alleged acts have left the company, per Wynn Resorts. Everyone who was responsible for disclosing a settlement involving Steve Wynn and one of his alleged victims to the Mass. Gaming Commission is also gone, and only Maddox, now the company’s CEO, remains from the company’s original list of qualifiers.

Whether the five commissioners think that the steps Wynn Resorts has taken in the wake of the Wall Street Journal article that ignited the commission’s investigation are sufficient for the company to maintain its suitability is an open question.

“Remedial measures are certainly important, but they do not erase the past and as the Nevada Gaming Commission’s recent historic regulatory fine demonstrates, this is a very serious issue of corporate governance which requires careful consideration,” the Gaming Commission’s chief investigator Karen Wells told the commission.