Wynn Las Vegas

When Phillips' demands were ignored, Phillips threatened to kill or injure Wynn if Wynn did not pay him money. Phillips also threatened Wynn's director of security, Scott Werwinski, claiming he would "get" Werwinski for going to the police and cooperating with the prosecuting authorities.

On August 1, 2001, Phillips was indicted on one count of aggravated stalking, eighteen counts of extortion, and one count of dissuading a witness from testifying or producing evidence. The extortion counts in the indictment contained the same language, alleging Phillips: [D]irectly or indirectly threaten[ed] to accuse STEVEN [sic] WYNN with a crime and/or to injure STEVEN [sic] WYNN and/or to publish or connive at publishing any libel; and/or to expose or impute to STEVEN [sic] WYNN'S disgrace and/or a secret of STEVEN [sic] WYNN'S, with the intent to extort and/or gain money and/or United States currency, to wit: by defendant writing letters and/or correspondence demanding money from STEVEN [sic] WYNN while threatening to expose the said STEVEN [sic] WYNN to false claims of heritage and/or make false claims to law enforcement officers and/or the media.

Phillips filed a motion in the district court seeking a DNA comparison with Wynn to determine whether Phillips' heritage claims (i.e., that Phillips was Wynn's half-brother) were false. Not wishing to subject Wynn to a DNA analysis, the State argued that extortion was a crime of threat and that the truth or falsity of the threat did not matter. Nevertheless, the State filed an amended indictment in which it altered the language charging extortion. The new language charged Phillips with extortion by, among other actions, "threatening to expose the said STEPHEN WYNN to alleged claims of common heritage." [FN1] As a result of the amended indictment, the district court denied Phillips' motion for a DNA analysis.

FN1. The State subsequently filed additional amended indictments, however, the charging language of the extortion counts remained the same, except to correct the misspelling of Wynn's first name.