LOS ANGELES -- "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis testified today that record producer Quincy Jones told him he received multiple emails from Steve Wynn in which the casino mogul allegedly said he wanted Francis killed.
"He showed me stacks of emails," Francis told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury hearing Wynn's defamation lawsuit against the video maker. "He was rattling them in my face."
However, testifying as the trial's opening witness, Francis said he never actually read any of the emails to check for the authenticity of their content.
"I think it would have been rude and insulting," he said.
Francis was repeatedly admonished during his testimony by Judge Joanne O'Donnell for giving answers beyond the questions posed to him by Wynn's attorney, Barry Landberg.
"Do you know that I can sanction you for misconduct in the courtroom?" O'Donnell asked Francis.
At one point the judge called a recess so one of Francis' attorneys could consult with him.
In his suit filed in June 2010, Wynn alleges Francis defamed him by twice stating on April 12, 2010, that Wynn threatened to kill the video-maker and bury him in the desert.
One of the statements was made in court during a hearing concerning a $2 million gambling debt Francis allegedly ran up at one of Wynn's Las Vegas casinos. The second statement occurred outside the courtroom. Both remarks were overheard by an Internet celebrity gossip reporter, according to the lawsuit.
Francis' lawyers maintain the second statement was a re-publication of what was said in the courtroom and therefore not actionable.
Wynn, who sat in the front row as he listened to Francis' trial testimony, denies threatening him.
"In truth and in fact, Wynn never threatened to kill Francis, nor physically threatened him in any manner, and never said he would hit Francis with a shovel and bury him in the desert," the hotel owner's suit states.
However, Francis said he was once kidnapped and he feared for his life. He said he only spoke up during the gambling-debt hearing because he was pressed to do so by the court commissioner overseeing the case.
Francis said he asked the commissioner to clear the courtroom before he talked about Wynn because he knew there might be members of the media present.
"I didn't want the attention," Francis told jurors. "I don't want to be sitting here right now."
