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Former Las Vegas Realtors CEO Wendy DiVecchio wants answers.
In an exclusive interview with Inman, DiVecchio said she received a death threat shortly after she sued the organization that employed her for 25 years and called for the release of findings from an investigation that preceded her termination.
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DiVecchio said she has yet to receive an explanation for why she was abruptly suspended and eventually fired. Meanwhile, she said, she complied with the investigation while she said colleagues leaked misleading details to the media throughout 2024.
“They have just ruined my career,” DiVecchio said in her first interview since she was abruptly suspended last August. She was joined in her interview by her attorney and a public relations professional.
DiVecchio filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Nevada in February, alleging wrongful termination and a breach of contract.
The complaint made reference to a disagreement she had with other members of the 15,000-member organization over the ownership structure of the Greater Las Vegas Realtors MLS. It also shed light on disputes with members of the board of directors, some of whom resigned in the midst of the investigation.
A candidate who ran for vice president during the election said in an email obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in November that DiVecchio told her to “keep campaigning,” which she said appeared to show DiVecchio knew she was behind in the polls before voting ended.
Representatives from the Las Vegas Realtors haven’t responded to multiple requests for comment from Inman or answered a list of questions related to DiVecchio’s claims and calls for transparency.
The following is a transcript of the interview, edited only for brevity and clarity.
Inman: The claims against you back in August were that this was all related to election tampering with the board of directors. What do you say to that?
DiVecchio: I have a different view of the word tampering, because it can mean so many things, correct? I cannot change numbers. I cannot vote for anybody. I can’t have access to their IDs to get into the system, nor their passwords. So there is no way for me to do any of that.
And that’s where this came from. You had a person that didn’t get in — that didn’t win — and she then turned into a whistleblower and this and that. But it was because she didn’t get in, so then all of this drama started happening.
Was their claim that even getting access to updated vote totals during the two days of the election, that your access to the information amounted to election tampering? Was that what they were claiming?
I don’t have access to that system to tell me how many people have voted. What I did was I emailed VoteNet, which is the company that does our voting, and I just asked him how many people voted since yesterday?
How many people voted since Tuesday? That’s the only thing that I did.
“I was never allowed to read that report that they did for the investigation. I was not offered a copy. I was not offered a reason that that investigation came up with for me to be let go.” — DiVecchio
How would you describe your working relationship with the board as of August of last year?
2024 was a very interesting year for me, being with the company for 25 years, sitting on the board of directors for 16 years. It was very, ‘You’re the CEO, but you’re not the CEO in this room.’ Which is not how it goes. I had a lot of people who were against me, who wanted to see me gone.
This is the first year that I’ve had complications with the board prior to this election thing.
What did that stem from? What changed after such a long career with the organization in 2024 that led to these kinds of disputes and disagreements and this shift in how things had operated before?
I never had any issues at all with when I was in MLS, when I was in education, when I was the COO, and when I’ve been the CEO. I have no complaints in my file. I have no discipline in my file.
They didn’t call me in for a meeting. They didn’t sit me down and say this is what’s going to happen. I opened up my email, my association email, and there was a letter on there that said, ‘You are now suspended for 30 days as we do an investigation on the tampering of the election results.’
There was no election tampering that happened at all?
No, I can’t tamper with the numbers. I can’t go on and change anything. But they keep using the word tampering. To me, tampering means that I went into the system of VoteNet and I voted for people, or I discounted certain votes or something like that, and I have no access whatsoever to be able to do that.
What happened next?
They have not given me any transparency. I was told I was only supposed to be suspended for 30 days, and then they shut off all my services. And then next thing you know, I get another letter in the mail saying that the investigation is still going and until further notice, you are not to talk to members, staff, anybody affiliated with the association, nothing until further notice. The next notice I received was that I was fired.
I was never allowed to read that report that they did for the investigation. I was not offered a copy. I was not offered a reason that that investigation came up with for me to be let go.
Nothing at all?
They have just ruined my career. If I’ve done anything wrong, where’s the evidence? There’s none. They have not produced any evidence. They have not produced any evidence about the investigation, whether I was found guilty, not guilty, what was the outcome.
If they had enough to damage me and get rid of me, don’t you think they would have added the evidence that they had against me? We’ve asked them numerous times to release the investigation report to us so we can get the facts out. I’m not afraid of the truth. What I’m afraid of is what are they trying to cover up?
Las Vegas. Image: Unsplash
Your lawsuit complaint made reference to a disagreement between yourself and members of the board over the Las Vegas Realtors’ ownership of the local MLS. Can you expand on that?
So right before I became the CEO, my predecessor applied for the MLS, so Greater Las Vegas Association Realtors Multiple Listing Service, LLC. So they could get their own IRS number to separate from the association.
So the association is their sole owner. We didn’t separate because we kept our ownership of them, but the only reason why we gave them their own board and bylaws and stuff like that was because we as an association were paying so much in taxes and that that would have reduced our tax liabilities. But I was never for that.
For the first year that I was in the CEO seat, I tried every which way with the auditing firm to see if we could get it changed to something else because there were still associations out there that kept their MLS underneath them. It wasn’t secret that I was opposed to keeping them separated.
Can you explain your position then? How is it different if it is a wholly owned subsidiary? If the board still controls the MLS, what is the issue in that case?
You have the MLS which is core to real estate. You have the real estate lock boxes, which is core to real estate. You have real estate forms, which is core to real estate. You have a store at the association that has all of their stuff they need to do their business.
There is no need to separate these two. I never saw the benefit of separating them and putting MLS in a whole subsidiary and then having Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors be in charge of them as a whole subsidiary.
But I was even more so by bringing them back under the association when I started seeing that the tax bills were higher than they were when MLS was completely underneath us and they didn’t have their own tax ID number. It’s actually costing more in taxes than it did before.
I’m sure you saw the news out of Colorado that REColorado was sold to a private buyer and separated entirely from any Realtor organization. Was there any discussion about doing the same for the Vegas MLS or it was all around taxes?
No, we didn’t. There was never any talk about selling our MLS. There was never any talk about making our MLS a broker-owned MLS. There was none of that. The only thing that MLS wanted was they wanted to be out from under the thumb of the mothership.
So was that a source of contention among board members then?
MLS board members, yes.
“If they had enough to damage me and get rid of me, don’t you think they would have added the evidence that they had against me?”
I’m just looking for a reason why some members would be opposed to saving taxes by bringing it back within the Las Vegas Realtors, you know, without the separate tax entity structure. What was the argument? Can you just shed some light on that?
We have quite a few brokers here at a Las Vegas Association that would love to see the MLS being separated from the association because…there’s this huge controversy of what if their MLS gets sued and then the LVR is going to get sued and then would LVR still be able to make their bills if we didn’t have the MLS money? All of that kind of stuff came up.
The members who are completely for removing the MLS from the association is because they don’t have to be a Realtor to have MLS. They don’t have to come and join and have to join as a Realtor and then become MLS.
Las Vegas, Nevada | Photo by Ameer Basheer on Unsplash
And so, a lot of people were for that, and then there’s a few brokers out there that are trying to get MLS separated, so that way they can join together, buy it, and then turn it into either somebody else owning it or a broker-owner.
What has happened personally to you since you filed the lawsuit, and maybe even before that, since you were suspended? I was told there may have been a threat made against you.
I had a person threatening to kill me, my family, all of this kind of stuff. I got a death threat in the mail, which is basically calling me a crook, and that I’m going to get it, and they’re going to know when. So that’s at the Henderson Police Department right now.
I am scared for myself. I’m scared for my family. Anybody close to me. I can tell you that since that threatening letter came out, my traffic on my street has quadrupled. There’s been a few situations where I’ve been out in public, and somebody will be like, ‘Oh, I recognize you.’ They’ll call me a bitch, and they’ll tell me that I’m a crook, and I’m doing all this to the association. And I just leave the store and go home because there’s no sense in me participating in conversations like that.
When was the last time something like that happened?
A month ago, I would say for the letter. But the cars and all that kind of stuff are just every day getting more and more and more and more of them.
Presumably your focus for now is on this lawsuit. I mean, staying safe, and then also on this lawsuit to get the facts out in court and potentially clear your name on the other end.
My livelihood is wrapped up in this case, and I want my name cleared because everything that they’re doing is fake. It’s false. It’s fake news. I haven’t done anything wrong in my 25 years of employment there, and I want the truth to get out.
I am tired of people sweeping stuff under the rug, not paying attention to stuff, and never getting the truth out. It’s always their truth, not the actual truth. So I just want the truth out. I want my name cleared, and I want to be able to get back to work.
