The manager whose name was on the shell company through which Sheldon Adelson’s family purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal has been removed from any role with the Nevada paper, the Review-Journal reported. He also no longer has a role with the Adelson shell company, the paper reported.
Mark Fabiani — who is doing public relations for the Review-Journal in light of the controversy over the Adelsons’ initially secret purchase of the paper — confirmed to the Review-Journal that Michael Schroeder “will have no role whatsoever with regard to the paper.” A Review-Journal staffer also Tweeted during a Monday with an editor that staffers had been told that Schroeder wouldn’t be involved.
Butler: “Let me just say my first hope would be you never see Mr. Schroeder again”
— stephanie grimes (@stephgrimes) January 4, 2016
The moves come after Schroeder was accused of plagiarizing a story under a fake name in a separate Connecticut paper he owns.
Schroeder was introduced to the staffers as the paper’s new manager soon after the sale of the paper was announced, as his name was listed on the corporate documents in Delaware of the then-unknown company that purchased the Review-Journal. It has since come to light that the Adelson family — who are major donors to Republican candidates and whose casino business is entwined with local politics — was actually behind the purchase.
It was also later revealed that Schroeder likely used a fake name to publish a story in the New Britain Herald — which he owns — that attacked Nevada District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez for her involvement in a Las Vegas case with Adelson ties. A longtime reporter in Connecticut quit his job at the Bristol Press, also owned by Schroeder, over the matter. It is believed Schroeder was also previously behind mysterious instructions to the Review-Journal staff to keep an eye on three judges, including Gonzalez, and used their reporting in the Connecticut paper story.
Review-Journal Publisher Jason Taylor said he was told by Fabiani before Christmas that Schroeder would be removed from the Nevada paper.
“I didn’t want any tie between that scandal and this newspaper,” Taylor said, according to the Review-Journal. “I didn’t want anyone to think that [Schroeder] would be attached in any way to our newsroom. I don’t want our peers in journalism or members of the public to feel like our journalism has been compromised.”
