LOS ANGELES from www.courthousenews.com – – Add billionaire Steve Wynn to the long list of people who have sued “Girls Gone Wild” producer Joe Francis. Wynn claims Francis defamed him by telling an Internet gossip site that “Mr. Wynn has threatened to kill me,” and, “He said he would hit me in the back of the head with a shovel and bury me in the desert.” Wynn says he never said anything of the sort.

Wynn claims Francis made the defamatory statements to the TMZ celebrity gossip site in April. But Wynn insists in his Superior Court complaint that “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.”

Wynn, a major player in Las Vegas casinos and real estate, also known as an art collector, demands punitive damages for slander. He is represented by Barry Langberg with Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck.

Francis has been sued dozens of times, often by underage girls who claim he provided them with alcohol and then filmed them in various stages of undress for his soft-core porn franchise.