A Los Angeles jury on Tuesday awarded casino mogul Steve Wynn $20 million in punitive damages in his slander suit against "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis. 
 
 That brings the total damages awarded to Wynn in the case to $40 million. 
 
 In a statement, Wynn said: "Thank God for the justice system that finally sent a message: If you think you’re taking a cheap shot, it may be a lot more expensive than you had imagined. Therefore, think before you post; think before you speak; hesitate before you start to destroy someone’s character. There may be a day of reckoning." 
 
 The jury found Francis knowingly made false statements when he told reporters and others that Wynn had threatened to kill him and bury his body in the desert amid a spat over a gambling debt. Because the jury found that Francis acted with malice, Wynn was able to seek additional punitive damages. 
 
 The initial award surpassed the $12 million Wynn's attorneys had asked for and swelled Francis' already substantial debt to the Las Vegas billionaire. With the original $2 million gambling bill and a $7.5-million defamation judgment awarded by a Nevada judge this year, Francis owes Wynn close to $50 million. 
 
 "The message has been sent," Francis attorney Aaron Aftergood told jurors Tuesday. 
 
 The Wynn-Francis feud stretches over several years and multiple lawsuits. For those counting, Wynn is 3-0 in civil judgments. 
 
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 Photo: Joe Francis (left) and Steve Wynn Credit: Associated Press ||||| A Los Angeles jury on Monday awarded casino mogul Steve Wynn $20 million, after it found that he had been defamed by "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis. 
 
 Wynn had sued Francis over the latter's claims that Wynn had threatened to have him killed and buried in the desert. Testifying last week, Wynn called the accusation a "terrible lie" that could potentially hurt his reputation and that of his eponymous company. 
 
 "He's unrepentant, vicious, out-of-control," Wynn said of Francis. 
 
 But since Wynn filed suit in 2010, Francis has maintained that the threat was real. He said music mogul Quincy Jones, his neighbor and a longtime friend of Wynn's, told him that Wynn wanted Francis dead in an email. 
 
 In court, Jones said that Wynn never threatened to kill Francis, and that Jones had never told Francis that Wynn had. 
 
 Francis' team has never produced the email; Wynn said that's because it doesn't exist. 
 
 The Wynn-Francis feud stretches over a number of years and multiple lawsuits. Francis attorney David Houston has suggested that their fraught history is what riled Wynn enough to threaten Francis. 
 
 Francis made the death-threat accusations while warring with Wynn over a roughly $2-million gambling debt Francis had racked up. Francis and Wynn also battled in court over Francis' accusations that he was plied with prostitutes and drugs during his betting spree. (A Nevada judge sided with Wynn in a lawsuit over those claims.) 
 
 In questioning Wynn, Houston tried to prove that the mogul, considered a sort of elder statesman in the gaming industry, was capable of spouting off threats. Houston played part of an interview from the 1980s in which Wynn told TV reporter Meredith Vieira that he'd choke her if she didn't include certain information in her report. 
 
 "I think you heard her laugh," Wynn said. 
 
 "Or gasp," Houston replied. 
 
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 Photo: Joe Francis, left, and Steve Wynn. Credit: Associated Press file photos
– Lots of girls are going to have to go pretty wild to pay off Joe Francis' legal bills: A jury has awarded casino mogul Steve Wynn $20 million in his slander suit against the Girls Gone Wild soft-porn tycoon, reports the Los Angeles Times. Francis had publicly claimed that Wynn threatened to have him killed and buried in the desert over a $2 million gambling debt, but the jury decided that the allegations were false and Wynn had been slandered. The jury will now decide whether to hit Francis with punitive damages, which could be as much as $60 million, TMZ reports.