Fire, Blue Eyes and Royalty
I've been waiting to see if there is any new news regarding Ted Maher's latest drama with the murder plot I wrote about in April. I checked Maher's inmate record today and it appears another court date is imminent on June 3, 2024. I guess we have to wait a bit longer.
There are a few things that I can write in the meantime that may be of interest. Musings- if you will - about things Ted mentions in his book that happened before meeting Edmond Safra which seem to not have been picked up in other books, blogs or articles.
Fire and brimstone
There is a bit of a theme with Ted Maher and fires.
In my last post, I mentioned that Ted made his way to Vegas in September 1979 in order to join the police force after "finishing" his time in the military (I put "finish" in quotes because, as I mentioned in that post, the timing of his departure from the military seems suspect given the extensive Green Beret training he had just gone through).
According to Ted's writings, his police gig didn't last. He had the misfortune of contracting meningitis from his wife (a pediatric nurse) just before completing police training. Due to complications from the illness, he was given a departmental medical termination and he left the force.
Once Ted found his feet again, he got a job in gaming surveillance at the Las Vegas Hilton. It's not clear from his book when he started this new job. From his description of events, I would hazard a guess that it would have been sometime in the first half of 1980. According to Ted, he outperformed yet again, completing the required training in record time and rising quickly through the ranks to the "top five" in six months.
That year on November 21, the MGM Grand fire happened, killing 85 people. Ted's car was also a casualty that day - his Volkswagen Rabbit had been parked right near the base of the fire.
The first question that occurred to me was "what would his car be doing at the MGM Grand if he worked two miles away at the Hilton?" But upon rereading the relevant section in his book, I realize Ted mentions that he also worked in surveillance at the Flamingo. The Flamingo was located next door to the MGM, so its reasonable to think its parking lot was impacted by the fire.
Three months later, a smaller though still deadly fire occurred at the Hilton. Eight people died, hundreds more were injured. The fire was deemed to have been started by a 23 year old busboy named Philip Cline. Philip, the son of career Air Force veteran out of Riverside, California, had a history of mental illness and serial petty crime.
In an eerily similar theme to Ted's saga with the Edmond Safra fire, Cline says he didn't mean to hurt anyone. Prosecutors built a story around Cline setting the fire in order to appear hero by raising the alarm and then putting the fire out (which he was unsuccessful at doing). Cline's defense team argued that the Hilton was partly to blame for the failure to maintain basis fire safety devices. But to no avail. Cline was convicted of arson and first degree murder and given eight consecutive life sentences. As of 2021, he was still incarcerated at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center.
In addition to odd similarities with Ted's case, a few other peculiarities stand out. Firstly, Ted doesn't mention the Hilton fire at all in his book. Given he says he was working in surveillance for 2 1/2 years, he would have had to still be working at the Hilton at this point, and in a relatively senior "top five" role. Thus it would stand to reason he would have been involved on the night or at the very least in the following investigation. Its not my book or my story, but if it was me I would have mentioned the Hilton fire - certainly over a burnt-out car from the MGM Grand fire.
But maybe it hits too close to home for Ted.
The next oddity was that one of the eight deaths was apparently from a gentlemen name Bruce Glenn who fell to his death just as the fire had been brought under control. The coroner was unable to determine if he jumped or if he was pushed, and an investigation into this question never took place. I haven't been able to find out much about Glenn apart from the fact that he was 47 and from Plymouth, Minnesota. At the time of the fire, the hotel was apparently hosting a large savings and loan convention, so perhaps he had come for that.
Finally, there is evidence that there were four sources of fire that night (again reminiscent of the second source of fire discovered in the Safra case). If that is indeed true, then the question to me is could our Philip Cline have started all four fires, or were there other arsonists there that night?
I guess we will never know.
Frank Sinatra
Turns out Ted Maher knew Old Blue Eyes.
After leaving his job in casino surveillance, Ted became a physician's assistant under an MD (Dr. Hamm) who Ted had connected with as part of the Special Forces medical program. This Dr. Hamm sounds like quite the doctor if he was teaching the US military's best of the best.
Ted worked for Dr. Hamm for about five and a half years, following him from the hospital to a new medical center Dr. Hamm founded with a group of other doctors.
Enter Old Blue Eyes. According to Ted, Sinatra suffered from a heel spur. As Sinatra's schedule didn't allow him time to get surgery on the painful, protruding bone, he settled for getting 3-4 cortisone shots in his hotel suite to manage the pain. Ted was the person who gave him those shots. This would have happened sometime during the period that Ted worked at the Las Vegas hospital (sometime around 1984-1987).
There are a couple of small coincidences relating to Sinatra. First, Sinatra received his gambling license just 2 days after the Hilton fire. Second, Frank's close friend and right hand man, Jilly Rizzo, was indicted in 1987 for fraud in relation to the 1985 collapse of Flushing Federal Savings and Loan and convicted in 1990. I'm sure Ted met Jilly as Ted commented in the book about the tight security around Sinatra. Plus, Sinatra and Rizzo were known to be inseparable.
The Saudi Prince
Ted Maher even met a Saudi prince.
Maher had a job as a registered nurse in the neonatal area at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, the preferred healthcare facility for the New York city elite. While working in the ICU area, Ted encountered Prince Ahmed bin Salman al Saud whose wife had just given birth prematurely to triplets.
Ted tells a story of his convincing and showing the uncertain Prince how to sit and hold his delicate daughters. Apparently, the Prince was sufficiently impressed that he then offered Ted an extremely well-paying job travelling with the bin Salman family. Ted, wanting to start a family of his own, turned the offer down.
Two things to note about Prince Ahmed. Firstly, it has been suggested by some that the Prince is tied to the 9/11 attacks. Prince Ahmed, an avid horse racing aficionado, was in Kentucky the day of the attacks. His accusers say he was aware of the pending attacks and that he might be connected to a number of the terrorists. This has been strongly denied and there is no definitive proof of any of the accusations.
The second point to note is that only a few years after Ted's encounter and less than a year after 9/11, the Prince died suddenly of an apparent heart attack in July 2002. Then, sadly, his cousin, Sultan bin Faisal, was killed in a car crash as he was enroute to funeral prayers for Prince Ahmed. They both ended being buried together. Then a week later, a third Saudi royal, Saudi Prince Fahd bin Turki, was found dead in the desert along with two other men after reportedly losing their way and expiring from thirst and heat.
Things that make you go "hmmm".