Sunday, March 30, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
THE rift between two of Nevada's most influential public officials has begun to shake up state government.
At the center of the conflict is Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, a veteran politico eyeing a Democratic bid for governor in 1998, and State Gaming Control Board Chairman Bill Bible, regarded as the "ultimate bureaucrat" who has worked for three Democratic governors.
The clash between the two, in the works for more than two years, has escalated to where it's testing the allegiance of Gov. Bob Miller.
On the one hand, Miller regards Del Papa as a strong political ally who issued an important legal opinion that allowed to him to serve two full terms as governor on top of the half-term he completed for ex-Gov. Richard Bryan.
Then there's Bible, the son of the respected late Sen. Alan Bible, who has made many powerful political friends during his distinguished government career.
Miller has staked his own reputation on Bible by urging President Clinton to name him to a federal commission that will study gaming over the next two years. The casino industry badly wants him on the panel.
Late Friday, as the rift intensified, Miller began taking steps to diffuse the controversy, which comes amid much national scrutiny of the casino industry.
The hostility between Bible and Del Papa seems to have started in 1995 after Bible told Del Papa and some state lawmakers that he wasn't happy with the quality of legal representation he was getting from the attorney general's office.
That was the same year the Control Board learned that it had an errant electronics expert within its ranks, Ron Harris, who was using his state position to steal slot machine jackpots.
Bible, embarrassed that one of his own had abused the public trust, pushed hard for the criminal prosecution of Harris.
Eventually, Del Papa's office put together a case.
But somewhere along the way, the investigation took a strange turn -- the Control Board itself became a target. Credence suddenly was given to people with so-called dirt on the board who long had been discredited.
The change in focus seemed to coincide with the full-time hiring of Deputy Attorney General David Thompson, a longtime Del Papa friend, to prosecute Harris.
Last week, Mike Anzalone, a former Del Papa investigator who made most of the criminal case against Harris, said Thompson as far back as December 1995 started throwing "conspiracy theories" at him.
Ron Asher, a former Control Board enforcement chief, voiced similar concerns, indicating he had told Thompson he was "all wet" when the prosecutor questioned him last May about alleged wrongdoing at his agency.
Asher said he got the impression Thompson "could see a snake under every rock."
Yet another ex-enforcement chief, Andy Vanyo, said an investigator with the attorney general's office interviewed him last spring looking to link Bible to an earlier scandal at the board. Taken aback, Vanyo said he told the investigator he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing by the chairman.
Anzalone, meanwhile, said many of the allegations he was asked to pursue against the Control Board previously had been dismissed as not credible.
The more he resisted Thompson's efforts, Anzalone said, the worse things got for him in the office until finally he was forced to resign.
Before he left the office, Anzalone said, his Las Vegas superiors told him they were taking him off the "intelligence" aspect of the Harris investigation.
Del Papa strongly denied there was any kind of "intelligence" probe.
But there was no denying that Harris, possibly the worst casino cheat in Nevada history, had decided to cooperate with the AG against the Control Board. Del Papa refused to say exactly when that happened.
We do know that Harris pleaded guilty to four counts of slot cheating on Aug. 9. We also know that before he entered his plea, he sat down with Thompson and outlined his allegations of wrongdoing against others at the Control Board in a series of six videotapes.
The allegations could never be substantiated, but, somehow, copies of the tapes wound up in the hands of ABC News reporter Brian Ross, who aired portions on a March 12 "Prime Time Live" segment.
Del Papa denied her office was the leak, but she has been taking heat for losing control of the tapes.
Last week, Del Papa didn't react kindly to the suggestion by Anzalone and others that the Harris case had veered off course.
She wrote a letter to the SUN attacking Anzalone as a disgruntled ex-employee, a charge Anzalone refuted.
Even before Anzalone's comments appeared in the SUN, Del Papa had warned him in a telephone conversation that she would drag his name through the mud.
Still on the offensive, Del Papa also wrote a letter to Anzalone last week maligning me.
To many, the attorney general appeared more comfortable blaming the messengers of bad news than explaining the failings of her office.
Nowhere, for example, did Del Papa accept responsibility for how the tapes may have become public. Nowhere did she acknowledge that one of her deputies might have run amok.
Late in the week, Del Papa even attacked Bible.
She expressed outrage that Bible had shown excerpts of the videotapes leaked to ABC to lawyers for some of the companies that had been accused of wrongdoing by Harris.
To many within the casino industry, what Bible did appeared appropriate and responsible.
Why not give companies expecting to be maligned on national television a chance to properly defend themselves?
Casino leaders were baffled by Del Papa's sudden concern for the well-being of the tapes. Why wasn't she so upset when the tapes originally were leaked to the national media?
Late Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Mark James, R-Las Vegas, decided he had read enough about the swirling controversy.
James indicated he wanted to see whether there was interest in a bipartisan legislative investigation into Del Papa's handling of the Harris case.
For his part, Bible refused to publicly blast Del Papa, though privately he was said to be upset that Del Papa has shown no interest in wanting to find out how the tapes wound up in ABC's hands.
Miller, meanwhile, was slow to jump to Bible's defense.
Oddly enough, it was a Republican, Assembly Minority Leader Pete Ernaut of Reno, who came to Bible's aid.
Ernaut, one of Del Papa's biggest critics, called Bible the best Control Board chairman the state has ever had.
It's an opinion that Del Papa hasn't exactly shared the past two years.
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