Wayne Newton sued over Las Vegas home museum plans

Wayne Newton sued over Las Vegas home museum plans

Plans to turn Wayne Newton’s sprawling Las Vegas estate into a celebrity museum have shifted into an ugly legal battle citing mismanagement, animal abuse and sexual harassment.

The company that purchased the rights to convert Newton’s home into "Graceland West" filed a lawsuit this week in Las Vegas against Newton, his wife and her 76-year-old mother that claims the family unreasonably delayed the project to ensure it never opens.

The Newton family claims the lawsuit is a pre-emptive strike because they had planned to sue the company for breach of contract after multiple construction delays. The family plans to file a counter lawsuit challenging the allegations made by CSD, LLC.

The legal wrangling paints an uncertain future for Newton’s 40-acre estate featuring South African penguins, Arabian horses, and Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and 17th-century antiques collected from European castles.

Newton’s lawyer, J. Stephen Peek, dismissed CSD’s allegations as "salacious" lies and said the Newton’s had nothing to do with the project’s delayed opening.

"The real substance will come out in time," he told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview.

The lawsuit seeks to have the Newton family immediately vacate their lavish estate, Casa de Shenandoah, and allow the $50 million project honouring the Las Vegas legend’s music career to move forward. Construction plans for the museum called for an exhibition
space, theatre, zoo, visitors’ centre and other attractions.

The lawsuit also claims Newton sexually harassed a young female employee hired to train his 55 horses by repeatedly kissing her on the mouth. The worker quit and has threatened to sue Newton and CSD, according to the lawsuit.

Peek said the woman had been fired and described the accusations as an attempt to "obtain financial gain."

Under the terms of the museum deal, Newton, his wife and his daughter agreed to move to a newly constructed $2 million home on the estate so their mansion could be converted into a museum initially scheduled to open in late 2011. The lawsuit claims the family
refused to relocate or turn over personal memorabilia.

"It is quite clear that it was always their intention to remain in the Mansion regardless of the terms of the agreement," the lawsuit alleges.

The company claims Newton’s home was in a "sad state of disrepair" when it purchased the land for $19.5 million in June 2010, with his horses uncared for and 6-feet-tall animal manure piles covering the grounds.

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Posted by Fahad Zafar on May 18 2012. Filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry