By Steve Kanigher
<steve@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
Attorneys for Las Vegas golf course developer Billy Walters and his co-defendants in an alleged unlawful sports betting operation have accused Metro Police of illegally wiretapping their telephones.
A defense motion filed Tuesday in Clark County District Court seeks to dismiss the indictment against Walters and co-defendants Jimmie Hanley, Daniel Pray and John Tognino because of the alleged wiretap. The quartet has been accused of funneling money and information to and from illegal bookmakers nationwide.
Defense attorney Richard Wright of Las Vegas said he obtained a tape last week that allegedly contains a brief telephone conversation between two unidentified Metro employees. On the tape a man tells a woman:
"We got problems here. I was talking to Billy Hengler from America West, and I think we got into one of our wiretaps. It was to one of the attorney's offices ... that they're doing on Billy Walters, and the conversation was going back and forth until we realized we might have jumped into a wiretap somewhere."
There are references on the tape to "Intel," which defense attorneys interpreted as Metro's intelligence section.
Lt. Marc Joseph, a Metro spokesman, said in response to the wiretap allegation that "our position is we cannot comment on an ongoing criminal investigation."
Assistant Clark County District Attorney Charles Thompson said he had no knowledge of Metro wiretaps in this case.
But Walters said he contacted Hengler, a corporate investigator for America West Airlines at McCarran International Airport, and was told the conversation between the airline employee and the man on the tape occurred April 24.
Walters said Metro was motivated to wiretap the defense attorneys because it stands to collect a large share of more than $3 million in illegal proceeds from the gambling operation if he is convicted.
Walters and the defense attorneys said the alleged wiretap was a continuation of prosecutorial misconduct in the case over the past three years. Two prior indictments against Walters and his co-defendants were dropped, but a third indictment against them was returned by a Clark County grand jury last November.
"The fact that these guys wiretapped the phones doesn't surprise me at all," Walters said. "You have desperate people who have lied to their superiors about the facts in this case. I guess I'm going to have to find a secretive place to meet with my attorney to discuss strategy."
Deputy Nevada Attorney General David Thompson, the lead prosecutor in the case, said New York law enforcement authorities performed legal wiretaps in connection with alleged bookmaking in that state during the initial phase of this case. But he said he was unaware of any Metro wiretaps connected with Walters or the attorneys. He added that the attorney general's office had no monetary motive to authorize a wiretap.
"I don't have any knowledge of any such investigation at all," Thompson said. "As far as I know, the attorney general's office is not going to get any forfeiture money out of this case."
Hengler said he routinely talks with Metro officers regarding airport-related matters. Asked whether he spoke with the man on the tape, he replied: "I may have had a conversation on that day. I'm not real positive."
But he would not acknowledge having a conversation regarding Walters or wiretaps in that case.
"I'm in an unenviable place here," Hengler said. "I cannot do anything without talking to my supervisors in Phoenix."
While Hengler has referred the matter to America West lawyers, Walters said defense attorneys were prepared to subpoena the airline employee if necessary to testify at a hearing they hope to have on their motion in the next few weeks.
Wright and fellow Las Vegas defense attorneys John Moran Jr. and JoNell Thomas said they knew of no other case in Nevada where lawyers representing criminal defendants were wiretap targets.
"It's unlike any other case I've been a part of," Thomas said. She added that if illegal wiretaps have been going on for several months, "there's no way of undoing that taint."
Their motion states that under Nevada law wiretaps are permissible only for offenses such as murder, kidnapping and bribery but not for gambling-related crimes.
They said attorneys may be wiretapped only if they are under investigation for crimes covered by the state wiretap law. Anything else is illegal and a constitutional violation of attorney-client privilege, they said.
"It makes you uncomfortable, and you feel violated," Wright said. "If this (wiretap) took place, I will be coming after them, and I would expect them to be prosecuted for it."
Moran said he was "absolutely appalled" by the tape.
"We have a Sixth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution that says a criminal defendant has reasonable access to counsel," Moran said. "I don't believe there is any wiretap of an attorney that is legal or proper."
Thompson of the attorney general's office is the same prosecutor who led a highly publicized secret probe of state Gaming Control Board officials such as former board chairman Bill Bible that critics charged was politically motivated.
Walters, a major political campaign contributor to Nevada Republicans and Democrats, is one of those critics.
But Thompson said, "I didn't know who Billy Walters was before his case was assigned to me. I'm from the northern part of the state, and he's not exactly a household name up here."
Steve Kanigher is a staff writer for the Sun. He can be reached at (702)-259-4075 or by e-mail at steve@lasvegassun.com.