Las Vegas Weekly celebrates Danny Gans' special friend Alicia Jacobs-- but doesn't get into that 4 a.m. phone call or all those texts he'd sent her

The Las Vegas Weekly and its editor Scott Dickensheets have rolled out another cover story on a major figure in the Danny Gans case. Following up on last week's confessions from Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve Friess, comes a laudatory profile of controversial beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs.

Jacobs was a close personal friend of Gans, and on May 1, 2009, the the first member of the media to learn of Gans' death, getting a 4 a.m. phone call from Gans' manager Chip Lightman. The article touches upon the incident without exploring the details of the morning or her relationship with the musical impressionist:

"Jacobs defends her reporting of Gans’ death last year. The two were genuinely close. They dined together and, sharing an interest in physical fitness, worked out together. Jacobs was the first journalist contacted by Gans’ manager, Chip Lightman, after he learned of Gans’ death.

"Danny Gans and Alicia Jacobs became close friends during her career in Vegas. Jacobs sobbed through her segment announcing Gans had died and spoke emotionally of their friendship. It was a unique moment in broadcast news for the emotion displayed on-air by the reporter. Local media critics pounced.

“'I have thought about that and re-lived it many, many times in my head. Honest to God, I would not have done anything differently,' says Jacobs. 'I thought I could get through the story. But I remember seeing b-roll of Danny on one of the monitors, singing and dancing, and losing it. To this day I don’t believe he is gone … So, yes, I got a little emotional on the air. You know what? It was real. We are real. Sometimes it’s okay to be real on the air. People cry, hurt and feel pain. I wouldn’t change it.'”

"But what about--?" No, there is no follow-up.

The profile, From Beauty Queen to Extra: The Journey of LV's Top Celebrity Broadcaster, is written by Las Vegas Sun columnist John Katsilometes, a journalist who touched on Gans' rumoured drug use in his initial story about Gans' sudden passing at 52 (the powerful opiate Dilaudid would be named as a cause), but who backed off immediately along with the rest of the Las Vegas media pack. Perhaps that's why it celebrates Jacobs' role as a correspondent on the syndicated television infotainment show, Extra, and is full of sympathetic, humanizing notes about her adoption, disfiguring car crash and career-threatening love of animals, while not pressing her on the issue for which she's gained the most notoriety.


An accompanying photo of Jacobs as "Mrs. United States," however, does reveal that she is not a natural blonde.

Those texts? Click here to read all about them.

And click here to read Kat's fascinating article. Even with his hands tied, he's a great entertainment writer.

Meanwhile, we look forward to next week's cover story on Chip Lightman.

Keepers of Danny Gans' secrets gather

The Las Vegas Strip did not dim its lights to mark the first anniversary of the passing of the man who was the entertainment and gambling mecca's greatest homegrown superstar, but there were some who took time to remember the life and legacy of Danny Gans.

Norm Clarke tells us that friends and colleagues of the late musical impressionist gathered yesterday afternoon at his grave at Palm Memorial Park on Eastern Avenue. About a dozen people attended the 2 p.m. tribute, and it is that story-shifting inner circle, the ones who hold the secrets of his life and death, whose names stand out. Among them:

Chip Lightman, his longtime manager who says he received a phone call from Gans' wife Julie in the early hours of May 1, 2009, telling him that Gans had died hours earlier;

...Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter for local station KVBC-TV, who touted her close friendship with Gans and was the first person Lightman notified of the death that morning (around the same time that paramedics arrived at Gans' Henderson estate);


...R.G. Ryan, who collaborated on Gans' posthumous autobiography, The Voices In My Head, and who's refused to comment on the controversy regarding the timeline of Gans' demise or the drug use that led to it; his assistants and members of his band and crew.


Gans' wife and family packed up and moved from Las Vegas to La Cañada Flintridge, California, outside Los Angeles shortly after his death, which occurred about three months after he opened at Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino.

Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year

Steve Friess

We had our first encounter with Steve Friess a week after the death of Danny Gans. He'd written a column in the Las Vegas Weekly explaining why the sudden, mysterious passing of the Strip superstar was not a story worth covering. We emailed him to ask why he and his fellow Vegas journos were not doing the basic legwork on what, to all appearances, was a major cultural, economic and news story.

Within minutes, he emailed back:

""Uh, because until the toxicology reports come back it would be irresponsible and inappropriate for legitimate reporters to write baseless speculation? Because a man is dead and a family is in mourning and the state of the nation is not dependent upon exacerbating their grief? Because Pulitzer Prize winning newspapers have better uses of their resources than to 'investigate' something that public documents will reveal soon enough anyway?

"I looked over what you've been 'reporting.' It's all beneath contempt. Ginning up Robin Leach's 'rumors' when the rumors he's referring to have nothing to do with Gans' death, implying an inappropriate relationship with Alicia Jacobs, attacking the local press for having a modicum of dignity and restraint on a story that will come out anyway ... I need to go take a shower now. Blech.""

Then he whipped off a blog post that referred to our editor as an "asshole" and "vermin."

And so began our relationship with the Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, hearing-impaired music reviewer, Gay Vegas author, comp queen and concert producer that culminates in our naming Steve Friess Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year.

In the weeks and months to follow our first correspondence, Steve Friess made an attempt to close down our site because we ran his photo (forcing to use fascimiles), began a disinformation campaign to lead us and other journos off the track, and was revealed to have close ties to many figures in the Gans story, including Gans' boss Steve Wynn and Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen-turned-local entertainment reporter who was Gans' close friend and the first person informed by Gans' manager of his death.

Then there was the Michael Jackson story. After writing that "Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson’s music," and while covering the Vegas angle of the criminal investigation into Jacko's death for The New York Times, Friess inexplicably announced that he was producing and promoting a Jacko birthday "tribute" concert at the Palms Hotel, where he and his local NBC producer husband had honeymooned.

“In Las Vegas, when left to our own devices,
we do things a little differently.”
--Steve Friess, Las Vegas Weekly

In both the Gans and Jackson cases, Friess attempted to cover his tracks with unintentionally hilarious apologias in the Las Vegas Weekly.

So why does it matter?

Steve Friess, with his tendency to hurl insults, hold grudges and get himself into local gossip columns, is not merely a Vegas combination of Perez Hilton and Louella Parsons.

He is perhaps the most powerful journalist in Las Vegas.

As a freelance correspondent for major news organizations including The New York Times and USA Today, he is the filter through which distant editors can determine whether a story in Las Vegas is worth covering. In the case of Danny Gans, Friess made it clear that the story was not worth covering. And if his relationship with Danny Gans' boss Steve Wynn, or his even closer relationship with staffers on the local NBC affiliate (including his second "husband" and their BFF Alicia Jacobs) created a conflict of interest, so be it.

Steve Friess has no qualms about swinging his conflicts of interest in public, whether it's his political activism, favoritism, foul insults or kneejerk shouts of homophobia against anyone who questions his intentions or positions.

When local Greenspun Media laid off many reporters, editors and columnist earlier this month, Steve Friess, who attends fancy openings of hotels, gets himself and his family members free admission into any show on the Strip whenever he wants, squirrels away opening night mementos and souvenirs that one day will be worth thousands on eBay, kept his job. But then again, Steve Friess, who poses as a brave, independent journalist, is the ultimate courtier to the powerful whose blogsite always displays a link to his interviews with Steve Wynn.

Read our coverage of Steve Friess here.

Story of The Year:The Death of Danny Gans
Mystery of The Year:What ever happened to Down Charleston Blvd?
Top Trend: Dying

DANNY GANS BOMBSHELL: MANAGER SAYS VEGAS STAR DIED "A COUPLE OF HOURS" BEFORE HIS WIFE CALLED 911

LEILA NAVIDI

In a shocking interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Danny Gans’ manager has raised disturbing new questions about the circumstances of the musical impressionist’s drug-related death.

Chip Lightman, who was first to receive word from Gans’ wife Julie that the Las Vegas Strip star had died in his bed early on the morning of May 1st, indicates that Gans may have died hours earlier than police reported, and that Julie Gans phoned Lightman a half hour before she called 911.

STEVE MARCUS/LAS VEGAS SUN

According to the incident report from the Henderson Police Department, Gans’ wife Julie (“Julia”) awoke “at approximately 0340 hours… and realized Daniel was no longer snoring. When Julia checked on Daniel she realized he was unresponsive and she could not tell if he was breathing and or if he had a pulse.  Julia immediately called 911.”

Lightman, however, tells Sun columnist John Katsilometes that Julie Gans called him at 3:15 a.m., and told him that Gans had died “a couple of hours ago.”

“I get a call at 3:15 in the morning, and it’s Julie, his wife, and she goes, ‘Dan is gone.’  I’m like, 'What!?’  At that moment, it was like I was dreaming.  I didn’t think I was awake and on the phone, and then I go, 'What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘Danny died, Chip.’ I’m saying, ‘No.’  She said, ‘Call whoever you have to call and let them know, and I’ll talk to you later.’

“I asked, ‘When did it happen?’ She said, ‘A couple of hours ago.’”

Henderson police report that Julie Gans called 911 at 3:44 a.m.


Lightman also responds to a question Tabloid Baby first asked in the days following Gans’ death: why he immediately phoned Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen turned local entertainment reporter who flaunted her close relationship with Gans, to inform her of Gans' passing.

“I had collected my thoughts, and I thought, ‘OK, how do I get the word out? Do I get Steve Wynn up at about 4 in the morning and tell him?  Or do I call (Wynn Las Vegas spokeswoman) Jennifer Dunne?  ... I finally just called Alicia.  She was the first person I thought of to get the word out, get it on the air, and I knew her number.  When something like that happens, you’re in shock.  Danny had just done an interview with her, and she was fresh on my mind when I thought ‘media.’  I thought, ‘I’ll just call Alicia.’  They were friends, too.”

HENDERSON, NEVADA POLICE REPORT

Lightman’s latest statements are all the more disturbing in light of the fact that they come more than seven months after Gans’ death, with more than enough time to prepare his answers, and after he and others close to the situation have altered their stories more than once to fit new information and circumstances that arise.


And while it's Lightman's backhanded swipe at Gans' widow in an interview to promote the Gans autobiography that stands out, Lightman's latest version also paints a very different picture of Gans.

While he once claimed that Gans seemed to be in perfect health in the days leading to his death, he now tells Katsilometes that the star was ill.

“A few days before he died, I said, ‘You don’t look like you feel well.’  He said, “I’ve been fighting something.  I’m just drained beyond drained.  My shoulder has been acting up, the kids are sick, everyone around me is sick.’  The Wednesday night before he died — we always sat and met before onstage, usually at 7:10 — and he didn’t look good.  He looked worn out..."

He admits that Gans may have been using steroids-- for his vocal cords:

"People said to me, when the coroner’s (report) hadn’t come out yet, 'We know he’s doing tons of steroids, and he had bulked up like the Hulk,' and all this stuff.  And you know, if Dan did that, he didn’t do it around me.  If Dan took any steroids, it was for his voice, to lessen the inflammation on his vocal chords...  He worked out five days a week, and he had a 2,000-square-foot gym at his house."

He even says Gans' Encore Theatre may have been cursed.

“The biggest concern was the room People said it was a bad-luck room, it’s cursed.  Dan was saying, ‘Spamalot didn’t work, Avenue Q before Spamalot didn’t work.  Nothing has worked, and they were very good shows.’"

The Henderson Police Department investigation into Gans’ death was open for almost two months, but no criminal charges were filed.  We do not know if the police looked into the records of Gans' home or Chip Lightman's phone calls.

Julie Gans and her children moved to Los Angeles during that time.  Although the three teenage children have been brought out to speak with the media twice since the tragic death, Julie Gans has not been seen in public.

The Las Vegas news media as a group deliberately avoided any investigation of the circumstance of Gans' death or unexamined private life (Katsilometes wrote the day after Gans’ death about rumours of Gans’ steroid use — but never followed up), and Steve Friess, a local blogger, comp queen, New York Times stringer and close associate with Gans boss Steve Wynn, joined with Jacobs in a campaign to stop any investigation into the death and in fact, have this site shut down.

Public perception of the Born Again Christian, athletic, corporate entertainer has shifted in recent months with the revelations that a pharmacy co-owned by Gans marketed a male erection party pill.  Gans’ children, brought out to face the media last month to promote the recently-published autobiography, changed a story they’d told earlier to acknowledge that their father did take prescription medication.

Developing...

AUDIO: JULIE GANS' 911 call

Did his involvement in Vegas Jacko tribute get Steve Friess' producing partner fired from Jersey Boys?

Las Vegas Sun

Erich Bergen, who was the frontman and star of the Las Vegas Michael Jackson birthday tribute he produced along with Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author and comp queen Steve Friess, has been fired from the Las Vegas production of Jersey Boys-- and in the words of one Vegas columnnist, caused a media "kerfuffle" in the process.

Bergen, who portrayed Four Season Bob Gaudio in the show at the Palazzo Hotel & Casino on the Strip, has turned himself into a Vegas personality, performing at the Liberace Museum (his version of Britney Spears' "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman" is a YouTube staple), and then going national with his flogging of the “Michael Jackson’s Untimely Death Was The Best Thing That Could Ever Have Happened to Michael Jackson’s Music Show” while his partner Friess stayed in the shadows.


His surprise axeing was reported in the Las Vegas Sun and in an angry Twitter from Friess' BFF, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs:

I am SO FURIOUS! Just heard that my friend.
ERICH BERGEN was "let go"
from JERSEY BOYS!
Told not 2 return from his vacation!
Wow. BIG MISTAKE

When respected Las Vegas writer Richard Abovitz Los Angeles Times blog item expressed wonderment over such a fuss over a common cast change in an ensemble Vegas show, a supporting player at that, Freiss responded with a tantrum on his own Vegas blog.

Oddly, Friess, who claimed loudly that the mysterious overdose death of Vegas headliner Danny Gans was not a story worthy of investigating or reporting, claims that the departure of a supporting castmember of an ensemble show is actually big news:

"... it's odd to me that Abowitz overlooks the fact that Erich's name has been in the papers for most of the time he's been in Vegas, an unusual feat for even the stars of shows with more singular performers. He's been pivotal in turning the Liberace Museum's showroom into a hip place for young Strip talent to jam, he raised $103,000+ less than a month ago for Las Vegas schoolkids in a show that drew massive amounts of international news coverage and he was the mouthpiece for 'Jersey Boys' only a fortnight ago on one of the most-watched TV shows of the summer.

"When someone makes a name for themselves, we call them celebrities. And when celebrities are summarily dismissed from the jobs that made them celebrities, the public is understandably curious. Fame + Controversy = Newsworthiness. Is it really that baffling?"

The pompous use of the word "fortnight" notwithstanding, Friess neglects to address the elephant in the room: whether Bergen got the axe because of his association with Friess and his involvement in the controversial exploitation of Michael Jackson's death.

We've emailed Friess. He has yet to respond.


(Fame + Controversy = Newsworthiness? Unless it's Danny Gans, we suppose...)

Michael Jackson's brother hires Danny Gans' manager

There's no longer any denying an intimate relationship between the deaths of Michael Jackson and Danny Gans.


Gans' manager Chip Lightman tastefully chose the day of Michael Jackson's funeral to announce that he's been hired by Jacko's brother Jermaine to help launch a "comeback," beginning with convention and corporate bookings.


According to Norm Clarke in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Lightman (known for phoning beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs in the early hours of May 1st to inform her that her good friend had been pronounced dead only minutes earlier) has not booked any Vegas gigs. Norm says Lightman "employed a similar strategy with Gans, who went on to become a Las Vegas headliner sensation.

"Lightman said Jermaine Jackson, who had limited success as a solo act, is putting together a show based on his hits (two top 10 entries), Jackson 5 hits and a tribute to Michael.

"Jermaine, who sang Michael's favorite song, 'Smile,' at his brother's memorial, plans to hire some of Michael's musicians, said Lightman.

"...Jermaine recently announced he was organizing a tribute to Michael in Vienna, Austria, and promised 1 billion TV viewers. But no family members agreed to participate.

"Larry King's wife, Shawn, was initially involved, but pulled out."


Another connection: Shawn King was set to perform with Danny Gans at the Wynn Resorts' Encore Theatre on May 2nd.

Lightman has been booking some acts into Gans' theatre at the Encore. We reported in July that he'd floated the story that he'd talking to a representative of Jackson's brothers about having them take over the empty stage.

The Kats' out of the bag about Steve Friess' Las Vegas "tribute" to Michael Jackson

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Rolling out act after self-congratulatory act while a flurry of tweets about its wonderfulness was unleashed by its producer and his friends, beauty queen-turned televisioon entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs and Norm Clarke of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the “Michael Jackson’s Untimely Death Was The Best Thing That Could Ever Have Happened To Michael Jackson’s Music Show" went off as scheduled at the Palms resort in Las Vegas yesterday-- but not without some serious questions aimed at its producer and promoter, Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author and comp queen Steve Friess.

The questions came from Tabloid Baby.

Friess gave his answers to the Las Vegas Sun.

One thing the Danny Gans case has made clear is that journalists working in Las Vegas read Tabloid Baby, and while some curse us for calling them out on their cowardly refusal to investigate the big questions while hyping some questionable enterprises, they do take our criticism to heart-- and when they can slip it past their editors, take up our challenge.


In this case it was John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Sun who, in a promotional piece on the Jackson "tribute," cornered Friess about his obvious conflict of interest, if not the bizarre notion of his producing a "tribute" that he insisted was not a tribute to Jacko the man, even though the tribute took place on Jacko's birthday, with Jacko's father as a guest.

Kats gets Friess to answer the questions we have asked in this space, and in many unanswered emails to Friess, including:

Was Joe Jackson paid to attend the tribute?

How much does he plan to raise in total?

How much money will go to ""production costs" and expenses?

Either Katsilometes asked the questions or Friess used the friendly reporter to give his answers, unchallenged.

Writes Kats:

"Friess finds himself performing something of a moonwalk between the Jackson death investigation and the Palms benefit. His role in covering the Vegas angle of the Jackson story has coincided with his involvement in organizing a charity show that is essentially authorized by the Jackson family. Friess, who writes regularly for Las Vegas Weekly (a Greenspun Media Group publication) among his freelance gigs, allows that it has been an interesting summer ever since the details of Jackson’s death spilled out to include Las Vegas.

“'There’s no doubt it’s weird for me,” Friess said today. 'When this was conceived, it was just a couple of days after his death. Nobody believed it would be a homicide at that point, that it would be anything this controversial connected to Las Vegas... Journalists don’t have to divorce themselves from their communities.' (Friess plans to write of his shifting between journalist and benefit producer in next week’s L.V. Weekly.)

"Friess finds himself performing a moonwalk
between the Jackson death investigation
and the Palms benefit. His role in covering
the Vegas angle of the Jackson story
has coincided with his involvement in
organizing a charity show that is essentially
authorized by the Jackson family."
--Las Vegas Sun

"Soon after Jackson’s death, Friess was approached by Bergen, a friend who is a lifelong Jackson fan, to assist in organizing the benefit show. Bergen has invoked an audio clip of himself at age 4 singing 'Man in the Mirror' during his performances at the Liberace Museum and has written a piece for the Sun relating Jackson’s influence on his career. It was Bergen who first thought to turn Jackson’s untimely death into a means of raising money for local arts programs, and both organizers have said that the show is to honor the creative work, not the mercurial and ultimately tragic lifestyle, of Jackson.

"At this writing, about $90,000 in advance ticket sales have been raised, Friess said. The goal is $100,000... Friess says that all money taken in after production costs will be donated to the Public Education Foundation to fill such needs as instruments, maintenance of instruments, sheet music, supplies and specialized tutoring (the books will be opened to anyone who wants to review how the money was allotted, he said, adding that the Jacksons did not ask for fees to appear at the show or dedication ceremony)."

If Steve Friess is indeed writing another apologia for his actions in the Las Vegas Weekly, we hope it is as amusing and mind-boggling as his "A Fine Restraint" excuse for not investigating the death of local superstar Danny Gans.

Meanwhile, we should point out that Michael Jackson's death was suspicious from the start, his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray of Las Vegas, was sought for questioning from day one, after he disappeared from the emergency room hours after Jacko's death, and Friess, who wrote in the Weekly's July 2nd issue that "Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson’s music," was covering the Las Vegas investigation of Murray weeks after he began producing the birthday part for the man whose "baggage" he claimed "imprisoned and stigmatized" his "product."

Las Vegas Sun finally reports week-old Danny Gans pharmacy story: Reporter claims Alicia Jacobs snatched her scoop!

While the Las Vegas Review-Journal continues to keep a conspicuous distance from covering the drug death of Strip headliner Danny Gans and its aftermath, its putative competitor, the Las Vegas Sun, has finally reported news from early last week that the entertainer who died from an overdose of Dilaudid was a part-owner of a pharmacy.

The coverage however, comes in the blog section of its website.

Dana Gentry, a local television reporter and executive producer local cable television shows Face to Face and In Business Las Vegas, reports the story, this afternoon, as well as posting the 2003 letter confirming Gans' stake in the drug business.

Gentry also claims she had the scoop a week ago, but that it was snatched away the following day by a competitor: Danny Gans close personal friend, the beauty-queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter, Alicia Jacobs, who "reluctantly" asked the tough question.

Gentry reports:

Gans owned pharmacy
By Dana Gentry · August 24, 2009 · 3:46 PM

Danny Gans’ friends and family maintained that the late entertainer had little use personally for prescription drugs, though his death in May was from an overdose of Dilaudid, (the generic is Hydromorphone) a painkiller. The source of the drug that killed Gans has not been identified.

Now the Board of Pharmacy is investigating Gans’ ownership interest in Green Valley Med, a distributor of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to doctors. Documents we obtained from the state reveal Gans had held a stake in the local pharmacy since 2003. The pharmacy board took Gans’ records from Green Valley Med in June, but will not reveal the nature of the documents seized. Green Valley Med bills itself on its website as the "largest medical supplier in Southern Nevada.'

We wanted to know if it carries Dilaudid. Owner Scot Silber seemed stunned last Monday when I asked about his business relationship with Gans. Silber confirmed the two were partners but wouldn’t say whether Green Valley Med carries Dilaudid. Coincidentally, the very next day Gans’ self-described friend, Channel 3 entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, detailed Gans’ ownership interest and reluctantly delved into the possibility that Gans obtained the lethal drug through that association.

Attorney Bob Massi, who represents Green Valley Med and doubles as its marketing director, declined to be interviewed but in an e-mail said, "The perception that is being portrayed of Danny Gans is disgusting. He was a great man, an ambassador to Las Vegas, and he is being smeared by an affiliation which was and has been a matter of public record."

You can see the story tonight on In Business Las Vegas, Las Vegas ONE, Cox Cable Channel 19.

(click photo to enlarge it)

A fall encore for Danny Gans

Hours after the disturbing news that drug victim Danny Gans owned his own pharmacy comes word that the Danny Gans industry plans to carry on with the release of several new products.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has given scant coverage to the details of Danny Gans untimely and unexpected death on May 1st, announces today that Gans' autobiography, The Voices In My Head, will be published in October "through Stephens Press, which is owned by the same parent company as the Review-Journal."

Gans' former manager Chip Lightman and the Gans estate also plan a fall release for a Danny Gans music CD and a "full-length video" of one of Gans' shows. The publicity claims that Gans finished recording the CD "months before he died," although his last musical CD was released in 2000.

The three posthumous products will be sold individually and also bundled in a single package.


Through their company, GansLight Entertainment, Gans and Lightman also produced the Donny and Marie Osmond show at the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip. Lightman has ended the partnership with the Gans estate and is now producing the Osmonds solo as Chip Lightman Entertainment. The Review-Journal notes that Gans's name will remain on the giant "building wrap" poster on the Strip because it "is cost-prohibitive to change."

Gans' close friend, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, revealed this week that Gans' widow and children have left Las Vegas "for good" and moved back to Los Angeles.

"Did Danny get any of his prescriptions from this company?" Alicia Jacobs asks the tough question about Danny Gans' drugstore

Did Danny Gans get his fatal dose of prescription drugs from the pharmaceutical supply company he partly owned? His longtime close personal friend, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs asked the question on Las Vegas television, and the answer was, “I don’t know.”

Jacobs took control of the story last night after it was reported earlier on her KVBC-TV News that Gans, who'd overdosed on a powerful opiate May 1st, was a minority owner of Green Valley Med, a "healthcare and specialty pharmacy" in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, where Gans had lived. She expanded the story to report that in the first week of June, the Nevada Board of Pharmacies had raided the place and seized “all of Danny’s records.

“They have yet to return them.”

Jacobs said that the company’s owner, Scot Silber, told her off-camera (because he “was not comfortable speaking on camera”) that “there are five investors in the company and that Danny is the second largest owner.”

Referring to Gans as “Danny” and in the present tense throughout, Alicia Jacobs said, “It began back in 2003. Silber owned Green Valley Drug, which Danny frequented. Silber was expanding his business and approached Danny about investment opportunity, which included selling medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.”


And though Jacobs pointed out that Green Valley Med “is not a place to fill prescriptions,” she asked Silber’s attorney, Bob Massi, on camera:

“It begs the question. Danny died of a drug toxicity. Now we find out he has ownership in a pharmaceutical company. Do we know? Did Danny get any of his prescriptions from this company?”

Massi replied:

“Well, I have no personal knowledge if he did. But the fact that any pharmacy would dispense medication doesn’t mean that they did anything wrong. I’m sure through the pharmaceutical board, you could find out whatever information that you want. Certainly.”

Besides letting slip that Gans had multiple prescriptions (something the coroner did not address when he said that Gans, a former athlete who’d had his share of injuries, had died from taking hydromorphone, which is sold as Dilaudid and known as “drugstore heroin") Jacobs also concluded that there is indeed a connection between Gans' case and the Michael Jackson death investigation.

Alleges link to Jacko death probe

Silber, Jacobs said, had considered buying Applied Pharmacy Services, the operation that federal agents had raised in their investigation of Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray.

Martin Singer, attorney for the Gans estate and other related interests, informed Tabloid Baby that Danny Gans had never been treated by or prescribed medication by Dr. Murray, and we issued a retraction to our story suggested that a possible connection be investigated by the Las Vegas news media.

As KVBC’s newscast tease of a “Michael Jackson connection” was far more misleading than the questions we raised, we wonder if KVBC will also be asked to issue a clarification.


As for Alicia Jacobs, it appears she may be attempting to salvage the credibility she squandered in trying in the weeks after Danny Gans’ death to help spin it into something other than the tragedy it was. Some say that fellow Born Again Christians and those, who, like Alicia Jacobs, saw Danny Gans as a religious leader, should have been the first to shout that the fact that he was a human being who’d suffered to the point where he needed medication takes nothing away from the philanthropy and honest values he espoused, or from the brilliant, unique, family-friendly talent he displayed onstage.

Gans family leaves Las Vegas

As Massi added somehwat superfluously in Jacob's report: “I don’t think you could classify Michael Jackson’s way of life with the Danny Gans way of life. That would be a real tragedy. That would be Shakespearean tragedy. Danny Gans was the antithesis of a Michael Jackson. From start to finish.”

Alicia Jacobs revealed that Gans’ ownership in the company has shifted to the Gans family trust, where it remains, and added a footnote that any local reporter and McCloud-imitating editor would find newsworthy: Gans’ wife Julie and her three children have moved out of their estate in Henderson, and “left Las Vegas for good.

“They’ve moved back to Los Angeles.”

Alas, the rest of the Las Vegas news media has yet to pick up on this latest twist in the Gans saga. While the story of the swimsuit-model-in-the-suitcase leads the mainstream agenda, one respected reporter told us that there is more concern about Time magazine’s cover story in which Joel Stein paints Las Vegas as a burnt-out shell “in the deepest crater of the recession.”

We’d hoped that there would be one strong truth-seeking reporter amid the beholden pack in Sin City. We did not expect her to be Alicia Jacobs. We’ll watch what happens next.

Report: "Drugstore heroin" victim Danny Gans owned his own drugstore!

The extent of the lax coverage of the death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans by the Las Vegas news media is beginning to be revealed tonight as a local television news station reports that the headliner who dropped dead in his prime of an overdose of the powerful opiate Dilaudid (aka "drugstore heroin") was part owner of a pharmaceutical supply company.

KVBC-TV News reports that Gans was a "minority owner" in Green Valley Med, a pharmaceutical company in Henderson, the Las Vegas suburb where he lived.

Green Valley Med describes itself as the "largest medical supplier in Southern Nevada," "your one-stop resource" that "caters specifically to the needs of physicians and other medical professionals who want one place they can count on for all their pharmaceutical, specialty compounding, nutriceutical, medical supply, and equipment essentials."

There has never been an explanation if what other drugs Gans may have had in his system when he died at age 52, nor to how Gans got his hands on the Dilaudid (one of his doctors told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that a computer check showed that Gans apparently did not have a prescription for the drug that killed him). There has been no suggestion, as the news report made that clear, that Gans didn't need to "doctor shop" because he had his very own shop.


KVBC is the home of Gans' close friend, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs and executive producer Miles Smith, unofficial husband of local blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, Michael Jackson "tribute" producer and comp queen Steve Friess (who led a crusade to stop and mislead investigation into what killed the supposedly clean-living showman). Already, Jacobs, who'd taken it upon herself after Gans' death to gild and mythologize her close friend, is on the case, twittering:

"Interviewed Danny (Gans') partner
in 'Green Valley Med' today.
Danny was the 2nd lrgst
owner. State Board of Pharm
seized his records in June"

Now we get to the real scandal: Why did the Las Vegas news media withhold this information?

Connected investigative reporters must have gotten the tip, amid all the rumours of steroid and painkiller use, that Gans was part-owner of a giant pharmacological candy store. If there was indeed a raid on the pharmacy in the weeks after Gans' death, the journos would have gotten word.

The websites for Green Valley Med and Danny Gans both mention support of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation-- good enough place to start.


But as we have documented in the months since Danny Gans died so tragically on May 1st, the Las Vegas news media-- newspapers, television, and with one noticeable exception, bloggers, stayed away from this monumental story.

With Alicia Jacobs telling her 2,131 followers on Twitter tonight that she's on the case, we can be sure she'll be putting the best possible face on unpleasant news. It will be interesting to see if anyone in the Las Vegas news media will stand up to the powerful interests that have kept a lid on this story.

For some reason, we don't expect it to happen.

Developing...

Alicia Jacobs claims that "certain powers" tried-- and failed-- to stop her interview with Danny Gans' ghostwriter

The controversy surrounding the May 1st death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans continues to expand as his close friend, beauty queen turned TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, claims that "certain 'powers'" tried to stop her from taping a TV interview with the co-author of Gans' upcoming autobiography.

Jacobs, who transmits her hourly activities on Twitter, kept a running tab of her journey to visit RG Ryan at the Starbucks where he and Gans met to write the book, "The Voices In My Head," which Ryan claims was completed the day before Gans' died.


She posted yesterday:

Just arrived @ the Starbucks where Danny Gans met weekly w/ the writer of up-coming book, "Voices in my Head." About 2 interview @rgryan.

She followed with:

"Just interviewed co-writer of Danny Gans' book. Very emotional 4 both of us. Many tears.Certain "powers" did not want the int.2 happen."

and

"So sad that certain people didn't want @rgryan 2 do interview..he is lovely & has so many touching stories 2 share re: time w/ Danny Gans"


Gans' book became the topic of journalistic controversy when, days after Gans' death from an overdose of Dilaudid, the Las Vegas Review-Journal made a deal with Gans' family to publish it. The Review-Journal's publisher had planned to rush-release the book in June, but publication was delayed unexpectedly by negotiations between Ryan and Gans' family. Ryan gave a hint of the sticking point when he told Tabloid Baby, "The book will be published, I am still credited as co-author."



Alicia Jacobs has been the target of much criticism ever since, by her own account, Gans' manager Chip Lightman phoned her within minutes of Gans' death to tell her firstof the tragedy and she went on the air waving a Bible she said her dear friend of 13 years had given her. In the weeks to follow, before the official cause of Gans' death was announced, she, Lightman and New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, Michael Jackson "tribute" concert producer and comp queen Steve Friess waged a campaign to spin coverage of Gans' life and legacy away from the inevitable verdict that he'd died from taking too much of the powerful opiate hydromorphone, also known as Dilaudid or "drugstore heroin."

Even the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which maintained a hands-off approach to the Gans story even before it becmae partners with Gans' family, accused her of "bias-in-reverse" in covering the story and insinuated she had lost all credibility in her Gans reports. (The controversy deepened when it was revealed that her executive producer at KVBC-TV News, Miles Smith, is Friess' unofficial husband.

The identity of the "powers"... the reasons for their objections... and why they were unsuccessful in stopping Alicia Jacobs? We have sent those questions to Alicia Jacobs and RG Ryan, and will let you know the responses.

La Toya Jackson gives blessing to Steve Friess' "Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to his music" show

According to Alicia Jacobs...

More on the "tribute" here, here and here...

"I’m just going to come right out and say it:
Michael Jackson’s untimely death
was the best thing that could ever
have happened to Michael Jackson’s music."
--Steve Friess, July 2nd, Las Vegas Weekly

Las Vegas keeping an eye on Tabloid Baby

"Hello Tabloid Baby!"

They're not talking, but they're watching.

The group of Las Vegas journalists who tried their darndest to keep the secret life of superstar Danny Gans from being investigated or revealed in the weeks before the coroner confirmed his death by Dilaudid overdose is keeping close tabs on Tabloid Baby's coverage of their unusual Michael Jackson tribute show.

Beauty queen turned TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, who literally took out a Bible during a news report to demonstrate the clean-living spirituality of her longtime close personal friend, referenced Tabloid Baby in a Twitter message early this morning.


Jacobs was bragging that she had been a guest at a roast for Harrah's Las Vegas president Don Marrandino over the weekend, seated with New York Times stringer, Guy Vegas author, comp queen (as exemplified in this case) and Jackson show producer Steve Friess (who led the campaign to quell Gans coverage) and Norm Clarke, the ubiquitous Las Vegas Review-Journalist gossip columnist who went to print with whatever Jacobs and Friess gave him-- and who revealed that the Marrandino was attended by "500 high rollers" along with the Gans trio.


Listing Friess, Norm as among the "fav pals" she "hung" with, she added somewhat defensively: "Hello Tabloid Baby!"

Hello, Ms. Jacobs.

(As of now, no Las Vegas journalist has written or broadcast a definitive, no-holds barred examination of the circumstances of Danny Gans' life and death.)