Judge denies request to shed light on secret court case

An attempt by the Las Vegas Sun to open a secret court case resulting from a sealed indictment, reportedly of four men on illegal gambling charges, has been rejected by District Judge Donald Mosley.

Reportedly the indictments were dismissed last month by Mosley after a closed-door hearing, but because of the judge's confidentiality order even that decision wasn't revealed through official channels.

Court documents filed by attorney Ralph Denton contend the "nondisclosure deprives the Las Vegas Sun of its right to exercise effectively the freedom of the press and deprives the public ... of information it has a right to receive."

Mosley conceded Wednesday the case has taken on a "cloak-and-dagger appearance" but said that continued secrecy in the case was necessary to protect the grand jury targets from embarrassment by the release of details in a dismissed case.

The judge explained the case was dismissed because of "the procedure utilized by the (deputy) attorney general in his presentation to the grand jury" and said continued secrecy is legally justified because the case may be presented again to another grand jury.

But the dismissals reportedly involve only three of the four men said to have been indicted, yet Mosley's secrecy order also covers the fourth defendant, whose criminal case by law must be conducted in public.

Mosley didn't address that issue in his decision Wednesday, stating only that "the indictments are at this time a nullity."

Assistant County Clerk Mary Mosley, the judge's former sister-in-law, said that when files are sealed for one person in a multi-defendant case, all references to that person are blacked out with a marker and the case against the other defendants proceeds as it normally would.

But in the current case, she said she was instructed by the judge's office to keep the entire file sealed.

The judge did agree with Denton that a case should not be secret once indictments are returned, and that would be the case if a new indictment were handed down "utilizing the proper procedure."

But until then, Judge Mosley said there should be secrecy "to protect the targets from undue embarrassment" and "to insulate the possibility of tainting another grand jury."

"Secrecy should be the exception certainly," Mosley said in his denial of the Sun's motion. "Without persuasive reason it should not be embraced."

Noting that the case apparently contains allegations of illegal gambling activities, Denton argued in court documents that indictments resulting from such cases "demand increased public scrutiny in Nevada where the highly regulated legal gaming industry is so vital to the fabric, structure and resources of this state."

Although the Sun was a party to Wednesday's case, reporters were excluded from the hearing.

After the hearing, Denton said that nothing had occurred except legal arguments that didn't violate any of the attempts by Mosley and defense attorneys to keep the defendants' identities secret.

"I don't see any reason why you couldn't have been here," Denton told reporters.

The documents indicate one of the four indicted on April 30 is a "politically influential businessman" currently negotiating one government contract and vying for another.

The Sun's lawyer had argued that if there were reasons in the sealed court case why the man shouldn't be given the contract, then those reasons should become known.

Conversely, if there are no such reasons, "then that also must be made known for the benefit of the public and public officials" because early media coverage of the pre-indictment investigation named the businessman.

The man's attorney, Richard Wright, complained at Wednesday's hearing that leaks of details in the case to the media violated state law, although Denton said the lawyer did not allege any wrongdoing by the press.

The case was prosecuted by the Nevada attorney general's office rather than the Clark County district attorney's office because District Attorney Stewart Bell's son had been employed by a company run by one of the defendants.

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