Complaint against counsel for ethics panel thrown out

Friday, June 26, 1998 | 8:55 a.m.

Deputy Attorney General Louis Ling, assigned as counsel to the ethics panel, had been accused of failing to provide the commission with copies of a deposition that may have revealed some new information about Jones' relationship with the bank that foreclosed on Main Street Station in 1993.

The complainant, former Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Miller, also told the commission that Ling erred by not allowing him to testify at a closed April hearing on the Jones bank matter.

The complaint alleged Jones used her positions as mayor and as a bank director to manipulate the sale of the bankrupt casino to the Boyd Gaming Corp.

Ethics Commission Chairwoman Mary Boetsch called Miller's complaint meritless. She said he failed to prove that the deposition and his testimony would have provided any evidence of Jones' connection to the bank that foreclosed on the casino. Jones was manager of a different division of Bank of America and wasn't involved in that transaction, Boetsch added.

Miller is a staunch critic of Jones and lost the 1991 mayoral election to her. He told ethics commissioners that Ling suppressed the evidence because Ling's boss, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, is a close personal friend of Jones.