Tuesday, March 18, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa's explanation of her handling of the Harris tapes has not satisfied a state lawmaker who wants the Legislature to investigate how ABC News wound up with them.
"This thing is getting more convoluted by the day," Assembly Minority Leader Pete Ernaut, R-Reno, said Monday. "It's like covering tracks with a backhoe."
Ernaut was reacting to Del Papa's latest attempt to explain in writing what her office did with the top-secret tapes, which formed the basis of last Wednesday's "Prime Time Live" report critical of Nevada's gaming regulators.
Del Papa sent a letter to lawmakers late last week indicating an internal inquiry found that her office was not the source of the leak.
"We have internally reviewed the custody of the Harris videotapes and other evidence, and it is clear that no evidence was released by this office to the press," Del Papa wrote.
Harris, a former electronics expert for the State Gaming Control Board, pleaded guilty to slot cheating in August. Before entering his plea, he began making the tapes with the attorney general's office, in which he alleged wrongdoing by gaming regulators. His allegations have since been discredited by Del Papa.
In her letter to lawmakers, Del Papa for the first time disclosed that copies of the tapes were given to New Jersey's Gaming Enforcement Division, which has a criminal case against Harris.
The revelation contradicted previous statements by Deputy Attorney General David Thompson, who conducted the taped interviews with Harris.
Thompson said earlier this month that New Jersey gaming authorities were only allowed to view some of the six tapes.
On Monday, Meredith Cote, supervising deputy attorney general in charge of casino prosecutions in New Jersey, said she came to Nevada earlier this year to view portions of the tapes and review documents in the Reno criminal case against Harris.
But Cote, who is prosecuting Harris for cheating at keno in New Jersey, said she was not given any copies or documents.
Nevada Assistant Attorney General Brooke Nielsen, however, said copies of two of the six tapes were sent to the New Jersey Gaming Enforcement Division in Atlantic City the second week in October. The copies were mailed to Detective Rick Lensey, she said.
Cote acknowledged subsequently obtaining portions of the tapes that included the excerpts aired on "Prime Time Live, but she refused to say where she had obtained them.
Lensey could not be reached for comment today.
And Keith Furlong, a spokesman for New Jersey's Gaming Enforcement Division, said he was attempting to track down whether his agency received the tapes.
Del Papa, meanwhile, said in her letter to lawmakers that Harris' Reno lawyer, Scott Freeman, had "specifically requested copies of a number of the videotapes and those tapes were provided to him."
Freeman told the SUN earlier this month that he couldn't recall ever receiving the tapes and didn't leak them to anyone with his client still waiting to be sentenced.
Nielsen said Freeman has since remembered that he put the tapes in the basement of his law office. Freeman could not be reached for comment.
The other copies of the tapes were given to the Control Board, Nielsen said.
She said three board employees, Dennis Neilander and Daurean Sloan, from the board's Corporate Securities Division, and Sally Eloyan, a supervisor in the Investigations Division, picked up the tapes late last year.
Control Board Chairman Bill Bible said the leak did not come from his office.
Ernaut, meanwhile, questioned whether Del Papa's investigation was thorough.
"As of Tuesday of last week, the attorney general had no intention of starting an investigation," Ernaut said. "Now, we're supposed to believe that she decided to have an internal investigation, implemented it, came to conclusive findings and articulated those to the Legislature by Friday."
Ernaut said he has gotten the impression that Del Papa isn't all that concerned about the release of the tapes.
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