Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | 11:03 a.m.
Peter "Chris" Christoff, one of the candidates who was defeated by Janet Moncrief in the Las Vegas City Council Ward 1 race, is alleging that Moncrief violated election laws by fabricating the names of groups supposedly responsible for campaign mailers and committing other infractions.
Christoff says he knows what went on because he was involved in the alleged deception. He made the allegations in an amendment to a formal complaint filed with the secretary of state's office today.
Just prior to being sworn into office this morning, Moncrief said: "I do not know Mr. Christoff. I have seen him at two events -- once on Jon Ralston's TV show -- and he (Christoff) came to my (campaign victory) party. I never asked him to do campaign fliers or work on my campaign.
"Maybe Mr. Christoff is not a happy man and he does not want other people to be happy."
Christoff, a longtime City Hall gadfly, also alleges that Moncrief is working with a topless club owner's public relations director to retire her campaign debts.
Moncrief denied the allegation.
Moncrief, a political newcomer, garnered 58 percent of the vote to defeat incumbent Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald in the June 3 general election. Christoff was knocked out in the primary.
The new accusations regarding the Ward 1 race surfaced as Moncrief was sworn into office this morning.
In the three-page amendment sent to Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Secretary of State Dean Heller today, Christoff said that Moncrief did not want to be identified with negative campaigning or offend those she named, so she asked for his help.
Moncrief wanted voters to consider McDonald's questionable associations and ethical problems, Christoff said.
"Therefore, she asked me to front for her negative mailers," Christoff said on the phone Tuesday night from San Diego, where he said he is taking a break from Las Vegas. "I agreed to cooperate, provided the mailers were truthful."
An April 15 mailer titled "9 Good Reasons NOT to Vote for Michael McDonald" included three negative references to McDonald's associate, Rick Rizzolo, owner of the Crazy Horse Too topless bar. The bar was raided by the FBI earlier this years but no charges have been filed as a result.
"On June 16, I was appalled to learn that Councilwoman Janet Moncrief is involved in a debt retirement effort being produced by Mr. Rizzolo's public relations director Tom Letizia," Christoff said in the amendment.
Letizia is planning to raise $700,000 for Moncrief at a July event scheduled to be held at professional gambler and golf course developer Billy Walters' restaurant, Christoff said in the complaint. Walters was also one of the people that Moncrief asked Christoff to bring up in a mailer as another example of McDonald's questionable associates, Christoff alleges in his complaint.
Moncrief said the restaurant in question is the Bali Hai on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. She said the figure listed in the complaint "would be some kind of a record." She said it is not accurate.
Bill Marion, Letizia's partner on Moncrief's transitional team, said "I don't know where he (Christoff) got that figure from. That he (Christoff) is making up figures and is slandering the name of a well-respected public relations consultant (Letizia) should reflect the lack of truthfulness in his complaint."
Letizia has been a public relations consultant in Las Vegas for 28 years. Marion said that while Letizia indeed represents Rizzolo, he also represents many other types of clients, including car dealerships.
"Because of the recent FBI raids on Strip clubs, he (Christoff) is using this association with a strip club client to try to taint Janet's good name," Marion said
Letizia said Christoff's complaint "is a total fabrication -- a joke. I hate to dignify it with a response."
Letizia said he found the allegation about the fund-raiser goal "real flattering. If I could raise $700,000 in one event there would be a lot of political figures who would love to hire me. Realistically, we would hope to raise $100,000."
Christoff told the Sun that he was "really downhearted to know I was used." Information about Moncrief's associations with Letizia and Walters surfaced after the June 3 election, he said.
Christoff said he would be ready to answer officials' questions in a few weeks.
Christoff's amendment was part of his response to a formal complaint filed April 25 by campaign officials for McDonald. Allegations included opponents in the primary election violated a number of election laws.
Challengers Moncrief and Christoff conspired to beat McDonald by using "illegal mailings, vast underreporting of expenditures and other unlawful acts," according to the complaint drafted by McDonald's campaign manager Jim Ferrence.
Moncrief beat McDonald 48 percent to 44 percent in the April 8 primary. Christoff received only 5 percent of the primary vote. Moncrief and McDonald met in a runoff in the June 3 general election. Moncrief denied the allegations and credited her wins to weeks of door-to-door campaigning and inexpensive mailers.
Ferrence said the cost of the 11 mailers sent out during the election by parties other than McDonald's campaign doesn't square with Christoff and Moncrief's reports that only a combined $15,921 was spent on the campaign effort. He said a conservative estimate is that an additional $45,000 to $100,000 was spent to campaign against McDonald and was unaccounted for in the finance reports.
The complaint said Moncrief and primary candidate Christoff, along with several "John Does" were funding Moncrief's campaign by sending out false mailers under unlisted political action committees and not listing the thousands of dollars in contributions it would take to put out such mailers.
Moncrief denied knowing of any anonymous contributors.
Three of the mailers were distributed under the names of political action committees not yet registered with the secretary of state, as required by law. The committees included "The Committee to Oust Michael McDonald," "Republicans for Good Government," and "Citizens for Better Government."
Christoff at the time claimed responsibility for sending 17,000 mailers attributed to the "Committee to Oust Michael McDonald." He described his failure to put his name on the mailers as a "human error."
McDonald's camp said it had a statement from political consultant George Harris that names Bob Stupak and Tony Dane as the financiers and consultants behind Moncrief. Stupak is the former owner of the Stratosphere and political player who has run for mayor of Las Vegas before. Stupak's two children have also run for City Council.
Dane ran for office in 1996 and was once accused of sending out an anti-gay mailer in last year's race with Assemblyman David Parks, Nevada's first openly gay lawmaker.
Ferrence today said he would never associate himself with Christoff and also chastised him for "impugning the integrity of Tom Letizia. It (the complaint) is sour grapes on Christoff's part."
Ferrence also said that because of Christoff's apparent effort to piggyback on his original complaint, "I am now inclined to withdraw my complaint to prevent my name from being associated with Christoff's. "
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