Thursday, March 20, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The New Jersey attorney general's office acknowledges its investigators received two of the six Harris tapes from Nevada, but strongly denies giving copies to ABC News.
"We are not the source," Roger Shatzkin, a spokesman for New Jersey Attorney General Peter Verniero, said late Wednesday. "ABC certainly got nothing from us."
Late last week, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, under increasing media and legislative scrutiny over her handling of the secret videotapes, wrote a letter to state lawmakers indicating copies had been given to New Jersey gaming regulators.
Her top assistant, Brooke Nielsen, then said two copies were mailed to Detective Rick Lensey of the New Jersey State Police the second week in October.
Lensey, who's assigned to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in Atlantic City, has not returned a phone call.
But Shatzkin confirmed Lensey received the tapes in October and that they are the same tapes ultimately obtained by Meredith Cote, a supervising deputy attorney general who's prosecuting Harris there for slot cheating.
Cote previously indicated she came to Nevada to view portions of the tapes earlier this year, but was not given copies. She said she subsequently obtained portions, some of which were aired March 12 on "Prime Time Live."
The tapes -- in which Ron Harris, a former electronics expert for Nevada's Gaming Control Board, alleges slots are rigged here to induce patrons to keep gambling -- were the centerpiece of the "Prime Time Live" report.
Harris began making the tapes with David Thompson, a Nevada deputy attorney general, before he pleaded guilty to four counts of slot cheating in Reno.
His allegations have since been discredited, but he has yet to be sentenced.
In her letter to Nevada lawmakers last week, Del Papa said an internal investigation found that the leak did not come from her office.
But Assembly Minority Leader Pete Ernaut, R-Reno, who has called for a legislative investigation into how the tapes were obtained by ABC News, voiced skepticism about the thoroughness of Del Papa's probe.
The State Gaming Control Board and Reno attorney Scott Freeman, who represents Harris -- the only others known to have been given copies of the tapes -- previously have denied being the leak.
Wednesday's denial by New Jersey authorities did not surprise Ernaut today.
"I don't think any of us expected that somebody would crack and say, 'I did it,'" Ernaut said. "However this got to ABC News was a lot more sophisticated to allow somebody to crack under a couple of questions from a state legislator from Nevada."
Ernaut said lawmakers need to focus attention on how the tapes wound up in the hands of the media and embarrass Nevada's regulatory process.
"Regardless of who actually ended up being the leak, I'm certain there are problems with the procedures that allowed this to happen," Ernaut said. "Every time I shake the apple tree, four or five more apples fall off."
Ernaut expressed uneasiness over Del Papa's apparent cavalier attitude toward the release of the tapes.
"I would think that someone in the attorney general's office would be concerned that this happened."
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