Lawmaker: DA’s office used intimidation

By Jeff German

Friday, June 19, 2009 | 2 a.m.

State Sen. Dennis Nolan has filed a sworn affidavit accusing the district attorney’s office of intimidating him into tempering his testimony for a family friend accused of sexual assault.

The three-page affidavit is the heart of a motion for a new trial for 27-year-old Gordon Joseph Lawes, who was convicted in District Court in July despite Nolan’s testifying on Lawes’ behalf.

“Sen. Nolan’s affidavit details how the state embarked on a course of outrageous conduct that involved witness pressure and intimidation at its best, extortion at its worse,” Deputy Public Defender Abel Yanez wrote in his motion.

In his affidavit, Nolan, a two-term Las Vegas Republican up for reelection in 2010, said he felt threatened by an investigator with the district attorney’s office after he was listed as a character witness a few days before the trial.

“During our conversation, the investigator inquired of me whether I thought it was ‘a smart thing to testify on behalf of a rapist,’ implying it would not be beneficial to my political career as a state senator if the public found out,” Nolan said.

Yanez accused the district attorney’s office of tipping off the Las Vegas Sun to Nolan’s trial testimony, a charge the district attorney’s office strongly denied.

“Nobody from the district attorney’s office had any communication with the Sun or any other media (about Lawes’ case) during the course of the proceedings,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Luzaich, who prosecuted Lawes.

Luzaich also said no investigators from the office had contacted Nolan.

She said she would file a written response with the court to what she described as “unsubstantiated allegations.”

The Sun interviewed Nolan before and after his testimony and included items on the case in one “Looking In On” article after Nolan testified and in another after a jury convicted Lawes.

Nolan said in his affidavit that the newspaper stories echoed the views of the district attorney’s investigator that Nolan was taking a political gamble testifying in the case.

“In essence, the state fulfilled its threat to Sen. Nolan that it would not be beneficial to his political career if the public found out he was supporting a ‘rapist,’ ” Yanez said, adding that the conduct warrants a new trial “free from the state’s pressure and intimidation.”

Lawes, a former campaign volunteer who played hockey with Nolan, was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl following a night of drinking in April 2004.

Nolan told the Sun during the trial that he found Lawes to be a person of solid character. He said he was told the sexual encounter between Lawes and the teen was consensual, and he would be “shocked” if Lawes was found guilty of sexual assault. The jury took about 2 1/2 hours to convict Lawes following a weeklong trial.

The teen’s father, Timothy Andersen, told the Sun afterward that he was “astounded” and “disgusted” that Nolan had testified on Lawes’ behalf.