Sunday, June 27, 1999 | 9:42 a.m.
(C) Copyright Las Vegas Sun 1999
The Nevada attorney general's office conducted secret background checks on top gaming regulators and a prominent lawyer under the cover of a well-publicized slot cheating investigation, documents in a District Court lawsuit show.
The documents currently are under seal in the hands of Discovery Commissioner Thomas Biggar, who is preparing to give them to Mike Anzalone, a former attorney general investigator. Anzalone is suing the office for firing him because he refused to participate in the background checks.
Anzalone has accused Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa of using the criminal investigation of Ron Harris -- a former Gaming Control Board lab technician who pleaded guilty to slot cheating in August 1996 -- to further an "intelligence" probe of high-ranking gaming regulators who were at odds with her.
Del Papa has long denied conducting an intelligence investigation. But at a June 11 hearing, Biggar made it clear that he felt such a probe, which did not result in any charges being filed, indeed had been conducted.
"You investigated the Gaming Control Board employees," Biggar told Del Papa's deputies. "You investigated members of the Gaming Control Board. You investigated materials and cases beginning in the '80s up to everything that has been said about the Gaming Control Board since that time."
In a 137-page transcript of the hearing obtained by the Sun, Biggar said he found repeated references to the intelligence probe in more than 50,000 documents turned over to him by the attorney general's office within the past several months.
Biggar, who oversees the sharing of evidence in civil cases, said records in the massive Harris file show that property and background searches were done on then-Control Board Chairman Bill Bible in 1997 and 1998.
And computer searches run through Shared Computer Operations for Protection and Environment, known as SCOPE in law enforcement circles, Biggar said, were run in 1996 on Ron Asher, who was Bible's chief of enforcement, and Frank Schreck, a Bible friend and high-powered gaming attorney who has been the top political fund-raiser for Nevada's last three governors.
The documents also show that Bible's retired administrative director, Harlan Elges, was the subject of a confidential intelligence report in 1996 and that Anzalone himself became a target that year, Biggar said.
The discovery commissioner said that there were more subjects of the secret investigation, but he did not reveal any other names during the June 11 hearing. He rescheduled another hearing on the documents last Friday until Aug. 6 so that he could review still more records from the Harris file behind closed doors.
Del Papa, who announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate earlier this month, has denied conducting an intelligence probe from the very day the allegations first surfaced more than two years ago.
In February 1998 after Anzalone filed his lawsuit, she told the Sun: "This office does not conduct intelligence investigations. It's rubbish to suggest that Bill Bible or other Gaming Control Board members were investigated."
Last week Del Papa was in Washington and could not be reached for comment.
Del Papa not pleased
But Chief Deputy Attorney General Richard Linstrom issued a statement on her behalf expressing his office's displeasure with Biggar's statements at the June 11 hearing.
"Although a final order has not yet been issued," Linstrom said, "the discovery commissioner's proposed recommendations are not only extremely disappointing, but are legally incorrect.
"They will be appealed to the District Court if issued as proposed. When allegations are made concerning matters under the attorney general's jurisdiction, the attorney general is obligated to review and evaluate them. That is what occurred in this case.
"It is disheartening to have the commissioner orally refer on the record during public proceedings to persons who were determined by the office of the attorney general to be innocent of criminal activities alleged by the convicted felon and slot cheat, Ron Harris and others."
At the hearing, the transcript shows, Del Papa deputies once more refused to use the term intelligence when asked to describe the investigation, even though Biggar told them their own records contain numerous references to intelligence reports on Bible and others. The deputies, however, said they were willing to acknowledge in court that the attorney general's office looked at matters beyond the parameters of the Harris slot cheating probe.
Biggar said he believes Anzalone and his Phoenix lawyer, Christine Manno, have a right to all of the documents that refer to the intelligence investigation. Anzalone contends the records are crucial to his ability to prove that Del Papa fired him in February 1996 because of his unwillingness to participate in the probe.
"I'm baffled," Anzalone said last week. "I don't know what they were thinking. To me that's an abuse of power. She's the chief law enforcement officer of the state, and she's having her office conduct investigations without any probable cause to show that crimes were committed."
At the time of the intelligence inquiry, Bible, the longest-serving Control Board chairman in Nevada history, was embroiled in a bitter feud with Del Papa. Bible, a member of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, had once complained about the quality of the legal representation his agency was getting from Del Papa's office. Bible now is retired and working as a private consultant.
Biggar encouraged the attorney general's office at the June 11 hearing to concede that it had conducted the intelligence probe, the transcript shows.
"You're not admitting there was a confidential intelligence investigation," he said. "I (disagree) with you on that."
Deputy Attorney General Bridget Branigan responded: "We certainly acknowledge that we investigated the entities that you just named ... We acknowledge that today ... And while we are not willing to admit that anything illegal occurred, we are certainly willing to work with you on language that would be acceptable that fully outlines the parameters of this investigative file."
Word of the intelligence investigation was first disclosed in a March 26, 1997, Sun story.
Taking shape
Anzalone, who put together most of the criminal case against Harris, told the Sun at the time that the probe took shape in December 1995 after Del Papa had hired Deputy Attorney General David Thompson to help prosecute Harris.
Both Asher and Andy Vanyo, another former enforcement chief of the Control Board, said they were interviewed during the investigation and that Thompson was pursuing wild conspiracy theories about board members and trying to dig up dirt on Bible.
The investigation appears to have intensified after Thompson and his investigators met in January and February 1996 with Frank Romano, a disgruntled former slot route operator who lost his gaming license in 1990 following a cheating scandal at his company, American Coin.
While fighting to keep his license in 1990, Romano had circulated a private investigator's report accusing the board of being corrupt. The allegations never were corroborated.
But in 1996, as he was preparing to go before the Nevada Gaming Commission to get his license back, Romano found a friendly ear in Thompson.
At one point, Romano even met with Del Papa to discuss the old allegations while her gaming deputies were working with the board to oppose Romano's comeback. The Gaming Commission ultimately rejected his bid.
In court papers filed earlier this month, Branigan said her office received a copy of the private investigator's file, which alleged payoffs had been made to "state officials," in March or April 1996.
Following a preliminary investigation, the attorney general concluded the file contained "no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing" by any officials, Branigan said.
About that time, Biggar said during the hearing, records show the attorney general's office ran Schreck through SCOPE, a 24-hour online master index of local residents, on March 12, 1996. A SCOPE of Asher was done three days later.
SCOPE is a well-known law enforcement tool to acquire immediate background information on people coming under police scrutiny. It contains such things, as addresses, Social Security numbers, traffic citations, criminal arrests and outstanding warrants.
Schreck, a key campaign fund-raiser for former Govs. Richard Bryan and Bob Miller and Gov. Kenny Guinn, declined comment. But Asher, a former FBI agent who retired from the board in June 1996, said he was surprised that a check was done on him.
Reasons unknown
"I can't imagine why they would SCOPE me," he said. "All they had to do was come in and ask me what they were looking for. I was pretty public in those days."
Branigan, meanwhile, said in her court papers that Anzalone was fired in February 1996 because other investigators working the Harris criminal investigation had discovered that Anzalone had removed items from the case file. Some of those items, she said, included phone numbers for the Romano private investigator who had offered leads about the alleged payoffs.
Subpoenas later were issued for Anzalone's phone records as part of an effort to determine whether he had "corruptly impeded" the Harris investigation, Branigan said.
Biggar said during the hearing that the attorney general's office also obtained Anzalone's vehicle registration, property and credit union records in the summer of 1996.
Anzalone denied removing anything from the Harris file, and he said he checked out the private investigator's allegations and did not find them to be credible. He said New Jersey gaming authorities did the same thing.
Bible told the Sun that Del Papa's predecessor, Brian McKay, also found no substance to the Romano detective's accusations years earlier, and he expressed shock that Del Papa was so willing to reopen those long discarded claims.
"I'm totally amazed that the attorney general's office is justifying what seems to be a wide-ranging probe of the gaming industry, the board, myself and others with a 10-year-old report prepared for Frank Romano," Bible said.
"In 1989, Mr. Romano hired a Florida private investigator to manufacture dirt about the board in a futile attempt to avoid loss of his gaming license and payment of a substantial fine because of cheating charges.
"The report made a number of wild accusations about people other than myself," he added. "As part of settlement negotiations with Romano, the board obtained the report and promptly turned it over to Brian McKay on Feb. 22, 1990. Mr. McKay took no action because he apparently concluded the report had no factual basis and lacked credibility."
Harris cooperates
Harris, meanwhile, had pleaded guilty to slot cheating in August 1996 and agreed to cooperate with the attorney general's office. Thompson debriefed Harris in several hours of videotapes in which the ex-lab technician leveled allegations of wrongdoing against his former colleagues and accusers at the Control Board.
The allegations never were substantiated. But some of the tapes later were leaked to ABC News, which aired excerpts on "PrimeTime Live" on March 12, 1997. That infuriated Bible and heightened the rift between him and Del Papa. At the time, President Clinton was considering appointing Bible, the son of the late Sen. Alan Bible, to the Gambling Impact Study Commission.
Amid the furor over the tapes, Anzalone went public in the March 26, 1997, Sun story with his concerns that the investigation of Harris had veered off course.
A month later, Thompson stepped up the intelligence portion of the probe again, according to the transcript of the June 11 hearing.
Biggar said at the hearing that he has seen records showing the attorney general's office obtained a "personal profile" of Bible on April 25, 1997, that included information on the cars and property he owned. Records show the attorney general had the Social Security numbers for "all the Bibles," Biggar said.
At the same time, investigators ran Anzalone on SCOPE, the discovery commissioner said.
Prior to that, Anzalone said, Del Papa had told him that his name would be "dragged through the mud" in the wake of his comments in the Sun story. Del Papa denied making those remarks.
Biggar, meanwhile, said he came across an April 30, 1997, letter from Ron Wheatley, an investigator in the attorney general's office, to Thompson discussing allegations relating to Bible. The letter was written the day after Clinton named Bible to the federal gambling panel.
"... It goes to the extent of snooping into, you know, business that has nothing to do with the Harris case," Biggar told Del Papa's deputies at the hearing. " ... It's the same combo working here, and it's in the Harris file."
Downplayed documents
Branigan tried to downplay the confidential correspondence. But Biggar responded: "Well, Bill Bible is mentioned prominently in this letter. Is that good enough for you?"
Several times during the hearing Biggar said he was inclined to make public all of the Harris tapes and most of the intelligence data contained in the Harris file so that those unfairly accused could have an opportunity to rebut the unsubstantiated allegations.
"I think all of this stuff should come out," he said. "... The thing is it appears to put a cloud on the Nevada gaming industry and on our own law enforcement investigative agencies if these things aren't put out in the open and cleared up ..."
Bible last week said he shared Biggar's opinion.
"I agree with the discovery commissioner that the Harris investigative file should be opened up for public review so that any affected individual can take whatever steps are appropriate to protect their legal right as a citizen," he said.
Biggar also made it clear at the hearing that he was unhappy with the way the attorney general's office, which has fought hard to keep the Harris file secret, has conducted itself during the Anzalone case.
He said he was "shocked" at some of Branigan's tactics.
"Ms. Branigan, you've done about everything wrong in this case that could possibly be done wrong," he said.
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