Missing Vegas Massacre Security Guard Resurfaces...

The mystery is over. After vanishing since last Thursday, wounded Las Vegas security guard Jesus Campos has been found... On the set of "Ellen".

As we noted previously, the general story of Campos" disappearance appears to have been confirmed by ABC journalist Stephanie Wash, who tweeted Thursday evening:

“Media scrum tonight as we learn security officer shot in Vegas attack, Jesus Campos’ whereabouts are unknown.”

“Jesus Campos was set to do 5 intvs tonight per union president, but they’ve lost contact. ‘We were in a room & we came out & he was gone,’” she also tweeted.

Then, David Hickey of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) told reporters Friday that he got a text the night before saying Jesus Campos was taken to a UMC Quick Care facility, though he did not specify where or whom the text came from.

A spokesperson at the UMC Quick Care, which has eight locations throughout the Las Vegas area, told Fox News on Monday that they had "heard nothing" about Campos visiting them.

And now, as Ellen herself tweeted this morning, we know where he is...

Tomorrow, the first people to encounter the Las Vegas shooter are here – security guard Jesus Campos and building engineer Stephen Schuck. pic.twitter.com/dDmjzN6xBx

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) October 18, 2017

As The LA Times reports, Ellen DeGeneres’ television talk show is expected to broadcast the much-anticipated first interview with the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino security guard, who was the first shooting victim in the Oct. 1 massacre in Las Vegas.

In a recording of his appearance on “Ellen” obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Campos, who said he was “doing better each day, slowly but surely,” confirmed he had called in when he was shot - before the full rampage began.

But he gave few other details that would answer nagging questions about the response of hotel security and Las Vegas police.

He said he called security dispatch to transfer his call to the building"s engineers, who sent an engineer to examine the door.

“At that time I heard what I assumed was drilling sounds,” Campos said. (Officials have said that Paddock appeared to be drilling into a wall inside his room for unknown reasons.) As Campos walked down the hall, away from Paddock"s suite, the outer door of the access room, which was unblocked, closed loudly behind him.

“I believe that"s what caught the shooter"s attention,” Campos said. “As I was walking down, I heard rapid fire, and at first I took cover.” The gunman was shooting through the door of his hotel suite. “I don"t know how he was shooting.”

Campos felt a “burning sensation” and went to lift his pant leg up and, seeing blood, realized he’d been shot.

“That"s when I called it in on my radio that shots had been fired,” Campos said. “I was going to say that I was hit, but I got on my cellphone just to clear that radio traffic for — they can coordinate the rest of the call.”

The photo of Campos holding a cane on the set Tuesday shows him alongside maintenance engineer Stephen Schuck, who was also shot at by the gunman on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel.

First Pictures Emerge Of Vegas Shooter's Weapons, Hotel Room

Somehow, Boston 25 News has obtained exclusive photos from what they describe as "police sources" purportedly showing the guns used during Sunday night"s massacre in Las Vegas, where a 64-year-old shooter with a room full of weapons fired on a country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino and resort, killing 59 people and injuring more than 500.

Boston 25’s Jacqui Henrich obtained the photos early Tuesday morning, and they clearly show the gun on the floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel room, along with many rounds of ammunition.

EXCLUSIVE: photo from inside #MandalayBay shooter’s hotel room shows gun, ammo, hammer, bipod, optics @boston25 pic.twitter.com/4B2iRhquq5

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) October 3, 2017

A hammer that was presumably used to break the windows of the room, which was on the 32nd floor, can be seen beside the gun. The bipod used to stand the weapon on as the shooter sprayed the crowd with bullets is also in view.

Las Vegas police said the shooter, Stephen Paddock of Mesquite Nevada, had 23 guns inside his hotel room, including semiautomatic rifles. An additional 19 guns were discovered in his home in Mesquite, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition. Meanwhile, explosives were found in his car, suggesting he may have been planning something even worse than the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

Paddock killed himself as police entered his hotel room, Boston 25 reported.

While none of the weapons in the photos are fully automatic arms, the "bump stock" that was used by the shooter to mimic automatic-weapons fire can plainly be seen attached to the butt of one of the shooter"s rifles, as the Tribunist points out.

* * *

In a development that only deepens the mystery surrounding Paddock"s motives, NBC news is reporting that the man who will go down in history as the Mandalay Bay shooter lost a slip-and-fall lawsuit against a Nevada casino in 2014. He reportedly still owed $270 in court fees at the time of his attack.

Security video from the Cosmopolitan Hotel shows Paddock slipping and falling on Oct. 30, 2011, as he walked from a hotel shop towards a high-stakes area in the casino. Paddock said he had slipped in a puddle of liquid and sued the hotel in 2012, initially asking for $100,000, according to an attorney for the hotel.

Footage showing Paddock slipping and falling...

The lawyer met Paddock when he testified in a deposition for the lawsuit. Paddock enjoyed a special high-roller status with perks at at least one Vegas casino, the lawyer said, but he was unkempt in his appearance, looking slovenly and "bizarre" during the deposition.

However, the lawyer said there was "nothing about Paddock that would ever indicate someone who was unstable."

"This is not a guy that I would have looked at and thought, "He"s going to commit a crime one day."

Paddock"s suit ended up in arbitration in 2014. According to the decision, Paddock reported incurring more than in $32,000 in medical bills, and also wanted to be paid for pain and suffering. Security video shows him getting medical attention and then being stretchered out of the casino.

"As a result of the fall," said the document, "Mr. Paddock allegedly sustained a tear to his hamstring as well as a sprain/strain injury to his wrist" and elevated blood pressure. The hotel maintained that Paddock had failed to prove negligence because "there was no actual or constructive notice of any liquid in the area of the sundry shop."

The arbitrator confirmed that the video does show Paddock slipping and falling, but also noted a custodian can be seen passing the same spot about a minute before Paddock"s accident, followed by about 20 hotel customers, and none of them "appear to have noticed anything on the floor [or] tried to avoid a wet area."

According to Paddock"s brother Eric, Paddock was a millionaire thanks in part to real estate holdings in California. Caesar"s Entertainment had granted him a "Seven Stars" designation as a frequent gambler "with status" at its casino properties, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Seven Stars is the highest level that a high roller can achieve and is only granted by invitation.

In the weeks prior to his death, according to multiple senior law enforcement officials and a casino executive, Paddock had gambled large sums of money at Vegas casinos. Currency transaction reports show that Paddock had recently gambled more than $10,000 a day,

Condo Flippers In Miami-Dade Left Twisting In The Wind

By Wolf Richter of Wolf Street

Ballooning Condo Glut ensnares preconstruction speculators.

Miami-Dade’s spectacular condo flipping mania is in turmoil, with sales plunging, inventory-for-sale soaring, and new supply flooding the market. It’s not like Miami hasn’t been through this before.

In February, existing home sales of all types fell 10% year-over-year, to 1,835 homes. These sales “do not include Miami’s multi-billion dollar new construction condo market,” the Miami Association of Realtors clarified in its report on March 23.

And this new construction market that is not included has become distressed.

Sales of single-family homes fell 10% in February, to 881 houses. The report blamed the shortage of properties “in popular price points.” Prices have been rising sharply, and at the price points where people could actually buy a house – below $250,000 – few sellers were playing ball. Hence a stalling market. Sales of high-priced units rose, but they weren’t enough to pull out the totals.

Condo sales fell 10% as well, to 954 units. This time, the report didn’t blame the lack of supply. Instead: “Existing condo sales are competing with a robust new construction market.” At the same time, inventory of existing condos for sale, not including new units, rose 10% to 15,289. At the current sales rate, supply soared 29% to 14 months.

This chart by StatFunding shows the plunge in sales and the surge in condos listed for sale. I circled the last five Februaries on the sales line (red). From February 2014 to February 2017, condo sales have plunged 25%. Andrew Stearns, StatFunding’s founder and CEO, calls the resale inventory – the dark green line that has soared 90% since early 2013 – “scary”:

Even this “scary” inventory understates the total number of condos for sale. It only includes units listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). But developers normally don’t list their new units on the MLS, and thus they’re not included in the above chart.

This is the distressed market that preconstruction condo flippers are facing.

Preconstruction condo flippers make a highly leveraged bet. They buy the condo from the developer during the construction phase. The initial deposit is small. Additional payments are required as construction progresses. But in a booming market, lenders are eager to lend. Then, often around the time the building is completed, flippers try to unload the condo at a profit. This bet has been hot in the condo construction boom around the country. But in Miami, the bet is now collapsing.

During good times, developers sell all their units either to end-users or to flippers within a few months of completion. But now, developers are getting stuck with unsold units, which, as Stearns points out, marked the “inflection points of previous condo cycles.”

The 12 large developments completed between late 2015 and late 2016 have added 2,743 condos to the market. Developers still own 433 of them (15.8%).

In addition, preconstruction flippers are also trying to unload their units. In those 12 developments alone, 451 condos, or 16.4% of the total, have been listed for sale on the MLS.

Here is the granular detail as of March 22 per StatFunding (sources: MLS, Miami-Dade Recorder; completion date in parenthesis):

• Echo Aventura, 190 units (8/2015). Developer sits on 13 units (7%) and took out a bridge loan secured by those units. 36 units have appeared on the MLS.


• Crimson, 90 units (12/2015). Developer is stuck with 30 units (34%!) and has sold only 1 unit since December 2016. 12 units listed for sale on MLS.


• Peloro Miami Beach, 114 units (3/2016). Developer has sold all but 2 units. This includes 3 units sold via bulk sale this year. But 38 units – 33% of the total! – are listed on the MLS for resale.


• CityCenter Reach, 390 units (4/2016). Developer is stuck with 46 units (12%). Meanwhile, 47 units have appeared on the MLS for resale.


• Le Parc Brickell, 128 units (6/2016). The developer has listed the 9 units that haven’t sold yet on the MLS, in addition to 23 units listed on the MLS by condo flippers, for a total of 32 units – 25% of the total!


• Centro, 352 units (7/2016). Developer sits on 34 units and has not sold any in 2017. Meanwhile, 56 units (16% of total) are listed on MLS.


• Bond, 328 units (8/2016). Developer still has 23 units, including 12 that an affiliate of the developer purchased in bulk in March. And 72 units (22%) have been listed for sale on MLS.


• Grove Grand Bay, 98 units (8/2016). Developer owns 7 units; 31 units (32%!) have been listed on MLS.


• CityCenter Rise, 390 units (9/2016). Developer still sits on 212 units (54%). According to Stearns, “developer closings have slowed to a trickle, and it appears the initial sell-through is nearly complete.” Already, 24 units are listed on MLS.


• SLS Brickell, 450 units (11/2016). Developer is down to 8 units, four months after completion. “This is what a successful sell-through looks like,” Stearns says. Condo flippers have listed 55 units for sale.


• Casa Brickell, 81 units (11/2016). Developer sits on 22 units (27%); 8 units (10%) have already appeared on MLS.


• Porsche Design, 132 units (12/2016). Developer still has 27 units (20%). “Initial sell-through closings are slowing,” and only 4 developer units sold in March, Stearns says. But 40 units (30% of total) have been listed for resale on MLS.

This sort of data begs the question: How many people actually live in units they own in these buildings?

For developers, the equation is getting dicey. Stearns:

Stuck with unsold units, some developers have not repaid their construction loans, others have taken out bridge loans to carry unsold units. The developer is responsible for taxes, maintenance fees, and insurance for unsold units, and unsold units are probably negative carry for the developer.

Developers may resort to mark-down liquidation or bulk sales of unsold condos as the cycle progresses….

Part of the problem? The market teems with foreign buyers. But the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has figured out that there is a large amount of money laundering in housing. It has started making noises. And cash deals are plunging in  Miami-Dade. In February they were down 17.5% year-over-year to 580 condo deals, or 61% of all condos sold. Other money-laundering hotspots too are being targeted, and answers are starting to emerge.