Posted on: March 17, 2026, 10:01h.
Last updated on: March 17, 2026, 10:01h.
- Judge rules lawsuit over alleged drink spiking can proceed to trial
- Dwight Manley claims ketamine poisoning led to $2 million loss
- MGM denies wrongdoing, says lawsuit aims to avoid gambling debt
A case involving the alleged spiking of Dennis Rodman’s former agent’s drink at the MGM Grand will go to trial, a federal judge has determined.
According to a court filing first reported by the Nevada Current, Judge Miranda Du has denied a motion by MGM for a summary judgment on a complaint from Dwight Manley, who claims he was drugged with ketamine during a stay at the Strip casino in December 2021.
Manley, a property investor and sports agent who managed Rodman in the 1990s, alleged in the suit that VIP staff raised his line of credit to $3.5 million after he became disoriented, allegedly from the effects of the drug.
“I find that plaintiff has offered evidence to create a genuine issue of fact that the cocktail he was served by defendant’s employee was poisoned such that he was incapacitated at the time he entered into the credit instrument at issue,” Du wrote in the filing.
Down the ‘K-hole’
Manley was a longstanding VIP client of MGM Resorts who had been invited to stay at the MGM Mansion, a super-exclusive Italianate hotel stuffed with Picassos and Matisses. VIP management had laid on a private jet for the high-roller and his friends.
On December 10 at around 1:45 p.m., Manley ordered an Old Fashioned that he said tasted “bitter,” but he finished the drink and ordered a second. At this point, he began to feel confused, per the lawsuit.
He broke a glass ashtray, cutting his hand, which bled onto the gaming table. VIP staff moved him to a new table but didn’t offer any medical assistance other than some Band-Aids, according to the complaint.
However, they did raise his line of credit, which he claims he wasn’t fit to sign off on. Ultimately, he says, he dropped $2 million in casino markers playing blackjack.
At around 5:15 p.m., Manley’s friends took him back to his villa, where he passed out. The next day, he said he felt he had been drugged. A doctor subsequently concluded “to a reasonable degree of medical probability, that Dwight Manley was poisoned with ketamine in the early afternoon of Dec. 10, 2021, at the MGM Grand Mansion.”
$1M Reward
Manley later splashed out on a billboard campaign in Las Vegas offering a $1 million reward to anyone who could tell him who drugged him and why.
Manley’s attorney, Paul Hejmanowski, claimed during the discovery process he had found 11 people who said they were drugged at the property.
MGM has argued there is no evidence that the company or its employees acted improperly and that the lawsuit is an attempt to avoid paying a gambling debt.
