With fake nugget or 440 layoffs, MGM Mirage has credibility problem

The odor of betrayal wafted over MGM Mirage last week like a big, stinky, puke-yellow cloud.

First the company laid off 440 managers and supervisors companywide, but mainly in Las Vegas. While it's a business decision, nothing personal, part of a $75 million cost savings plan, those people must feel a sense of betrayal.

Who wouldn't? It's a reminder that any of us could lose a job, not because of failing to do a good job but because that's the way to save money. Cut back on staff and pile more on the people who remain. They won't complain. They're grateful just to have a job, especially during precarious economic times.

But there seems to be another reason to feel betrayed by MGM Mirage.

At the same time the layoffs were announced, I was reading Tom Breitling's new book, "Double or Nothing," and on page 100 the "can that be true?" moment occurred. Breitling described how his partner, Tim Poster, was checking out the Golden Nugget before offering to buy it from MGM Mirage.

"He (Poster) passed the sixty-one-pound golden nugget on display that we later found out was a fake, a replica of the real golden nugget that the MGM Mirage had locked away. But the phony was behind glass, and how the hell would anybody know the difference."

What? The Hand of Faith gold nugget on display had been a fake during the years MGM Mirage owned it?

Immediately, I wondered whether it's still a fake because Las Vegas is a town of fakery on so many levels.

However, Justin McVay, public relations manager for the hotel owned by Landry's Restaurants since September 2005, was positive in his answer: "The Hand of Faith that is on display now is the real Hand of Faith."

The Hand of Faith is advertised as the largest known gold nugget on display in the world today. A guy with a metal detector discovered it in 1980 in Australia, and the Golden Nugget, under Steve Wynn, bought it and started displaying it in 1981.

The Hand of Faith is part of my historic tour of downtown Las Vegas for out-of-town friends and family. Park at the Nugget, hit the Golden Gate for the 99-cent shrimp cocktail, see the Fremont Street Experience, eat dinner at the Second Street Grill at the Fremont, stroll through the neon signs, gamble somewhere and call it quits.

So, between 2000 when MGM bought the Golden Nugget and 2004 when it was sold to Breitling and Poster, did I cause people to ooh and ahh over a fake?

I asked MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman: Did the company have any regrets about lying to the public?

Feldman, always a gentleman, answered: "Don't know where the wires got crossed, but I've checked with anyone here who would know, as well as the three highest ranking execs at the GN at the time, and all confirm that the golden nuggets on display were always real. One recalled the extreme measures used to protect them (bullet-proof glass, added surveillance, double alarm systems on all doors nearby, etc.) So, don't know what Tom meant, and don't mean to disagree, but no one here knows what he means."

Back to Breitling for clarification Friday. Obviously his recollection didn't come out of thin air.

"At the time we owned the Golden Nugget, there was a REAL sixty-one-pound golden nugget AND a replica," Breitling answered via e-mail from New York on his book tour. "I have seen both of them with my own two eyes. I know this for a fact, because I used the replica for my photography book, "Vintage Vegas," while the real one was on display in the protective case. We were told that the replica could be on display while the real one was being cleaned or polished."

So, you've got a guy who saw both the real and the fake and a company that doesn't know what he's talking about, a company that stands to be embarrassed by Breitling's revelation.

When you're trying to decide who's telling the truth, ask yourself: Who has the most to lose? Then decide for yourself which version has the ring of truth and which doesn't smell quite right.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.