Taxi Authority stands by report’s accuracy

Thursday, May 7, 1998 | 9:52 a.m.

A rift between the state Taxicab Authority and one of its biggest critics intensified Wednesday, as both demanded apologies.

State Taxicab Authority Administrator Bob Anselmo said he stood by the accuracy of a confidential investigative report that whistleblower John Mirkovich had criticized.

Anselmo said the report, which details an aborted sting aimed at breaking up an airport toll ticket scam in 1996, is supported by tapes of interviews with Mirkovich.

The Taxicab Authority's chief investigator, Bob Flaven, wrote the report, which was based on interviews with Mirkovich and others.

Anselmo offered to let Mirkovich listen to the tapes, but said he expected the cabbie to apologize for wrongly accusing Flaven of falsifying the report.

Mirkovich, however, said today he's convinced the investigative report is inaccurate, and he'll never apologize.

"They'll never see that day," Mirkovich said. "I stand by my story. I have my memory."

Mirkovich, however, said he would be willing to listen to the tapes.

He also said he believes the Taxicab Authority owes the public an apology for its own ineptness.

Anselmo said he was dropping an internal investigation into how Flaven's report wound up in Mirkovich's hands after discovering the agency itself had turned it over at the request of a hearing officer.

On Tuesday, Anselmo had expressed concerned that the report, which contains unsubstantiated allegations not meant to be public, may have been leaked illegally by one of his employees.

But Anselmo said Wednesday the agency gave it up upon the instructions of Hearing Officer Roger Harris, who is presiding over a case Mirkovich brought against his former employer, Desert Cab. Co.

Last week, Mirkovich complained in a letter to Anselmo that the report differed with his version of the facts about the ticket scam that he had given to Flaven.

Mirkovich has been on a crusade to expose alleged corruption at the Taxicab Authority since the airport sting was aborted.

Mirkovich blames the Taxicab Authority for the probe's failure, but the agency insists Mirkovich, who had agreed to be wired up, dropped the ball.

The investigation focused on allegations that authority airport control officers were selling recycled toll tickets to cabbies at cut-rate prices.

Cabbies were supposed to buy tickets from legitimate airport vendors for $1.20 a piece. But many were picking them up on the black market for much less.

The scam, which had been going on for years, reportedly cost McCarran International Airport hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No charges ever were filed in the probe, which collapsed after one of the targets got wise to the undercover operation.

An airport officer, however, was fired and another one was suspended as the investigation came to a close.

McCarran officials have since taken over collection of the toll tickets.