Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
THE Frontier hotel-casino has been using a secret spy squad against striking Culinary Union workers, the unit's former head charges.
The high-tech squad allegedly engaged in dirty tricks, including firing a large water gun at the strikers, placing manure where they were eating and stealing their hand-held radio frequencies.
Wayne Legare, who ran the squad from 1991 until October 1995, said in an interview that the unit spied on the strikers 24 hours a day from a second-floor command center dubbed the "900 Room."
Legare said the tactics have been used throughout the five-year Culinary strike, which began on Sept. 21, 1991.
Spying also was done on Metro Police monitoring the strike and the Strip resort's own security officers, Legare said.
The carefully guarded 900 Room, manned round-the-clock by 15 people, was the brainchild of Frontier executive John Elardi, whose mother, Margaret, owns the largest share of the hotel-casino. John Elardi holds a gaming license as a co-owner.
John Elardi did not return phone calls.
His brother, Frontier General Manager Tom Elardi, acknowledged that the 900 Room exists. But he insisted it has never been involved in dirty tricks and that it functions solely to maintain the integrity of the exterior of the resort during the strike.
"This property has been and always will be aboveboard," Elardi said.
'Desperate for money'
Elardi called Legare's allegations "absolutely ridiculous" and described him as a disgruntled former employee who left the resort in a dispute over money.
The Frontier boss said Legare recently wrote him a letter threatening to go public with allegations against the Frontier if he didn't get a certain amount of cash.
"I think he was just desperate for money," Elardi said. "Some of his statements that have come back to me are totally not credible at all."
The 61-year-old Legare, a nondenominational minister now living in northern Arizona, said he wasn't surprised to be branded a malcontent by the Elardi family.
But he insisted he was telling the truth.
"I know what I did," he said. "I know what I saw and nothing can change that."
Legare, who works with drug and alcohol abusers on an Arizona Indian reservation, said his only motivation for stepping forward was to clear his conscience.
"I have guilty feelings about the whole thing," he said.
High-tech spying
Legare explained that cameras mounted around the hotel and listening devices planted within a few feet of the picket line were controlled from the 900 Room.
One of the cameras was a powerful "eye in the sky" on top of the 16-story hotel that had the capability of zooming in for close-ups along a radius as far away as The Mirage, Stratosphere Tower and Palace Station.
Legare called the 900 Room a "mini-Cape Canaveral," armed with $250,000 worth of state-of-the-art video and audio equipment.
"There wasn't much that we couldn't see, hear and record," Legare said. "Our capabilities were awesome."
The sophisticated equipment was able to give the Frontier advance knowledge of the union's every move during the strike, he said.
To harass the strikers, Legare said, security officers working with the unit would turn on sprinklers and place large bags of manure near the union's catering truck when it showed up to feed the strikers.
A large water cannon created out of a sprinkler system also was fired at the union's loudspeaker system during rallies.
Legare said the surveillance equipment in the command center was powerful enough to allow security officers to read the beeper numbers of the strikers. Sometimes, the numbers would be called to give the pickets fits.
There even was a plan to use an electronic beam to jam the frequencies of the union's radios, Legare said.
But the spy squad didn't just confine itself to monitoring the picket line.
Among other things, Legare alleged, squad members stole documents from the union's garbage that exposed its strike strategy, lied to lawmen about the strike-related goings-on at the Frontier and spied on the casino's own security officers.
A couple of security officers once were caught on secret cameras mounted by the surveillance squad beating up a handcuffed patron.
Metro monitored
Metro Police officers were secretly monitored from the 900 Room, as they viewed tapes of the picket line inside the casino, Legare said.
Their comments were picked up on listening devices linked to the spy room, he said.
Those sitting in the command center could watch the officers viewing the tapes and listen to their comments.
Legare alleged that John Elardi once asked him to lie to a county grand jury investigating the April 1993 videotaped beating of California tourists Sean and Gail White on the Frontier picket line.
He said Elardi instructed him to bring a copy instead of the original tape of the beating that had been subpoenaed to the grand jury. Several strikers ultimately were charged criminally in the case.
Tom Elardi said it was "ridiculous" to think that his brother would tell anyone to lie in a court proceeding.
But Legare alleged that John Elardi also instructed employees to lie in civil proceedings involving the White case.
He said Elardi developed a "cover story" after the Whites were beaten to minimize the hotel's liability over the incident.
Elardi ordered employees, at the risk of being fired, to go along with a scheme to show the hotel had a policy of warning guests before the beating about possible violence on the picket line, Legare said.
In reality, he said, no policy was ever in place.
Most of Legare's allegations have been given under oath in a separate interview with Las Vegas lawyer Will Kemp, who is suing the union and the Frontier on behalf of the Whites. The ex-security officer also has spoken extensively with Culinary Union lawyer Rich McCracken of San Francisco.
A 39-page transcript of Kemp's sworn interview with Legare is on file in the White court case. The union is settling the couple's civil claims against its members, but the case is proceeding against the Frontier.
Longtime Frontier lawyer Steve Cohen said today questioned the value of Legare's court statement.
"We don't believe for a moment that testimony of a disgruntled ex-employee is going to carry any weight," Cohen said. "His court statement is not worth the paper it was written on. It was done without cross-examination."
'Outlaw' property
Culinary Union Staff Director D. Taylor said the spy squad revelations provide more evidence the Frontier is an "outlaw" property.
"Some of these things are very serious gaming violations that should jeopardize a license," Taylor said. "How many times do they have to break the law before authorities take appropriate action?"
Taylor said if authorities do nothing about these latest disclosures, it will give "carte blanche" to every casino to conduct "terrorist" activities."
State Gaming Control Board Chairman Bill Bible declined comment.
Strikers on the picket line this week, meanwhile, confirmed Legare's account of some of the dirty tricks.
Lilo Distler, who worked cocktails at the Frontier for 24 years before the strike, and Donell Henderson, a 39-year-old porter, described how pickets often were sprayed with water and forced to smell the manure while eating.
They said Frontier security officers stole their signs several times and once removed a fully equipped strike station with a forklift.
Legare and the strikers said the actions were designed to intimidate those working the picket lines and provoke them into doing something embarrassing that could be captured on videotape and used against the union in court.
"Their aim was to weaken the resolve of the strikers," said Joe Daugherty, the Culinary Union's strike coordinator.
Pickets outraged
James Boyd, a 27-year-old food server suing Frontier security officers for allegedly beating him on the picket line, described the Frontier's actions as criminal.
"It's amazing to me that they can continue to get away with this," Boyd said. "Any other citizens would have been locked up a long time ago."
Taylor said the union has been trying for years to persuade authorities to move against the Frontier, but its pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
The National Labor Relations Board, however, filed a complaint against the Frontier in January 1995, referring to some of the dirty tricks. No action has been taken yet on the complaint.
Legare, meanwhile, said his unit often borrowed cameras monitoring the casino for its own intelligence purposes at the resort.
At the time he left the Frontier, Legare said, he had stored as many as 5,000 tapes in his office, nicknamed "Wayne's World" after the hit movie.
Less than a handful of people, including Legare and John Elardi, had keys to Wayne's World and the 900 Room, Legare said.
He said Elardi had a policy of never giving out tapes to law enforcement authorities if they made the hotel look bad.
In such cases, Legare said he was instructed to lie and indicate the recording equipment wasn't running at the time.
Legare said Metro Police and the Nevada Highway Patrol were deceived that way numerous times when they had requested tapes.
In the summer of 1995, Legare said, the surveillance unit decided to move outside the Frontier's premises.
It carted away bags of garbage from the Culinary Union hall to see what kind of information it could find.
The garbage contained lists of the strikers, their Social Security numbers and how much they were getting paid, Legare said.
Internal documents showing how the union planned to pressure the 1995 Legislature into supporting their position in the strike also were among the items recovered.
"It was total warfare," Legare said. "Looking back, it was very distasteful the way that things were being done."
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