Wednesday, Sept. 7, 1983 | 6 a.m.
The trial of state Sen. Floyd Lamb on extortion charges, the first "Operation Yobo" prosecution in Las Vegas, began in U.S. District Court Tuesday, with prosecutor Lawrence Leavitt promising to take jurors, "behind closed doors, where corruption is practiced at the highest levels of state government."
Leavitt said the jurors will hear tapes Wednesday of Lamb and undercover FBI agent Stephen Rybar discussing payment of a $150,000 "finder's fee" to Lamb for the senator's influence in trying to secure a Public Employees Retirement Systems loan, and will hear Lamb tell Rybar, "I don't want nobody in this world to know."
Lamb, 68, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, was indicted last Oct. 7 by a federal grand jury of interference with commerce by extortion for allegedly selling undercover FBI agent Stephen Rybar his influence in an attempt to secure Rybar a Public Employees Retirement System loan.
The trial, before visiting U.S. District Judge Richard Bilby, is expected to last about a week. Defense attorney Richard Wright has admitted Lamb took $20,000 from Rybar as a consultant fee, not a bribe or extortion attempt.
Wright said he and co-counsel Charles McNelis, of Washington D.C., haven't decided whether Lamb will testify. Lamb, Democratic dean of the Nevada Senate, is the oldest brother in the powerful Lamb family.
Lamb and County Commissioner Jack Petitti face attempted extortion and conspiracy charges in a trial set for Sept. 26 before Bilby. That Yobo case stems from their alleged influenced peddling in regard to Rybar's efforts to get approval of a "fat farm" on Mt. Charleston.
Rybar, the prosecution's first witness, testified Tuesday about his relationship with Lamb. Most of the testimony consisted of cassette tape recordings of conversations between Rybar and Lamb, Lamb's secretary and a talk between Rybar and former PERS executive Vernon Bennett.
Rybar, now a security consultant in San Diego, posed as Steve Reilly, investment adviser for Doctors Fiduciary Trust, a fictitious firm purportedly set up to put the money of a group of Arizona doctors in tax-sheltered investments. Rybar sought Lamb's help to buy a casino, and Lamb suggested the Boomtown Casino in Verdi, owned by Bob Cashell, who last year was elected lieutenant governor.
Cashell will be called to the stand after Rybar's testimony. Other prosecution witnesses will include Bennett, Legislative Counsel Frank Daykin and Channel 3 executive James Rogers, who was a director of Nevada National Bank when Lamb was an executive there and the Yobo case was first publicized.
Rybar said he hooked up at the start of the probe in late 1980 with then-Sen. Gene Echols, D-North Las Vegas. Echols, he said, set up Rybar's first meeting with Lamb, at Rybar's request, on Dec. 5, 1980. From there, Leavitt said, the relationship with Lamb evolved during the session of the 1981 Legislature to the point where Lamb on May 8, 1981, brought up the subject of a finder's fee for his efforts toward a PERS loan. Leavitt said Lamb got from Rybar $20,000 in three installments that May and June, toward an agree-to fee of $150,000.
Leavitt and Lamb suggested an attorney would charge a 1 percent finder's fee.
"Rybar asked if 1 percent (of the loan) is far," Leavitt said. He said Lamb answered , "S--- yeah."
The payment discussions will be heard Wednesday, Leavitt said.
Rybar testitifed that Lamb suggested he deposit the trusts' money in Nevada National Bank, where Lamb was an executive. Rybar promised to deposit $1 million, and when he deposited only $450,000 on April 9, 1981, Lamb told him to come up with the full $1 million. Rybar did so the next day.
The April 8 tape included a conversation about Echols, a possible defense witness and co-defendant with County Commissioner Woodrow Wilson in another Yobo case scheduled for Oct. 4.
"I've been helping Gene out, economically," Rybar told Lamb.
Lamb said of Echols, "Any man his age who has to go around bumming money ... I don't know how he mooches. I can't understand it."
Said Rybar, "He's on the gravy train and he wants to stay on it."
In a later talk, Rybar and Lamb discussed Echols' apparent desire to go to work as an employee of Rybar.
Rybar testified that his first "inconsequential" meeting with Lamb included a Dec. 5, 1980, luncheon at the MInt Hotel attended by Sen. Keith Ashworth, D-Las Vegas, and a March 11, 1981 meeting at the Ormsby House in Carson City, attended by Sens. Norm Glaser, D-Halleck, and Lawrence Jacbosen, R-Minden.
