Erendira Dominguez and Allison Lopez worked at Aria Resort & Casino for 14 years before being unceremoniously fired in December 2023. Now, they are suing Aria and its parent company, MGM Resorts International, for wrongful termination.
The two Hispanic women are seeking lost wages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees, citing the “mental anguish, emotional distress, pain and suffering, humiliation, harm to reputation” that resulted from their dismissal.
They contend that they have been blacklisted from the industry as a result of the situation.
Confident in their case, in which they say they were wrongfully accused of stealing money from Aria, the women have requested a jury trial.
Key Highlights
- Erendira Dominguez and Allison Lopez were accused of stealing millions from Aria.
- An investigation turned up nothing, yet the women were suspended then fired.
- The women claim they had no access to the funds, nor a way to transfer them.
- None of their male superiors were punished without pay.
Millions Went Missing
Both women had worked in the marketing department since Aria opened in 2009, Dominguez as a coordinator and Lopez as a manager.
Starting in 2021, their supervisors, all of whom were senior executives at the casino, had them book hotel rooms for Las Vegas Golf Adventures (LVGA).
These golf packages include rounds of golf at Las Vegas area courses, and hotel stays at the name-brand casino resorts on the Strip, including Aria.
A key point in the complaint is that all the senior executives in the two women’s chain of command were men.
In 2023, a new vice president of national marketing for Aria “baselessly” claimed that Lopez was booking rooms that were intended for the golf packages for herself.
The company also said that millions of dollars connected to the LVGA were unaccounted for.
On August 30, 2023, Aria and MGM suspended both women. Lopez did receive six weeks’ pay, but Dominguez received nothing.
Didn’t Do It, Couldn’t Have Done It
Despite an investigation, the lawsuit contends that neither Aria nor MGM figured out what happened to the missing millions. Yet even with that, Dominguez and Lopez were fired in December 2023.
Only the Hispanic female plaintiffs had to endure that adverse treatment.
Excerpt from the lawsuit filed by Lopez and Dominguez.
Both women say that not only did they not have anything to do with the missing funds, but that they couldn’t have had anything to do with them.
They claim that they did not have access to LVGA account money or any means of withdrawing or transferring funds. Thus, even if they wanted to embezzle funds, they couldn’t have.
Dominguez and Lopez also say that no men in positions of authority were subjected to unpaid suspensions and that “Only the Hispanic female plaintiffs had to endure that adverse treatment.”
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, one male executive did resign but was given a severance package, and another was eventually transferred to a different MGM location in Ohio.
Though they were suspended and eventually dismissed, neither Dominguez nor Lopez has been charged with a crime.
Another Man Stole $773,000 From Aria
While the missing LVGA funds remain a mystery, this isn’t the only major missing funds incident the Aria had last year.
In September 2023, a hotel operations manager was arrested for stealing over $773,000 from the property between July 2022 and July 2023.
According to the Review-Journal, Brandon Rashaad Johnson aroused the suspicion of a coworker with his lavish purchases.
When asked how he could afford his lifestyle, Johnson said he had a side gig as a private chef for rich people. The coworker, though, had never seen him cook or talk about cooking.
The coworker then looked into Johnson’s work transactions and confirmed his suspicion that something was up. The arrest report stated that Johnson issued fake customer refunds to himself, putting them all on a single debit card, which fed into a checking out.
He started out with just a couple to test the waters, eventually building up to more than 37 such transactions in July 2023. All told, Johnson processed 209 bogus refunds.
Johnson shuffled the money among multiple bank accounts, all with Chase Bank, to try to disguise their sources. Johnson left Aria of his own accord when MGM started its investigation in July 2023 and gave himself up to the police at the beginning of July.
Sources
https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/strip-casino-employees-falsely-accused-of-stealing-millions-claim-they-were-wrongly-fired-3167613/
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/aria-manager-accused-of-stealing-more-than-773k-from-strip-hotel-2900967/
