Special prosecutor considered in 1990 American Coin killing

Bill Gang

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 10:18 a.m.

The question facing a district judge is: who gets to be prosecutor at the trial over the 1990 execution-style slaying of a whistle-blowing computer programmer for a gaming machine company?

The attorneys for defendants Soni Beckman and her nephew Vito Bruno say it shouldn't be the Clark County district attorney's office because four members of the office have had peripheral contact with the case, including District Attorney Stewart Bell.

The lawyers say that amounts to a conflict of interest justifying the appointment of a special prosecutor.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure will decide next month whether to toss out the district attorney's office. While he didn't indicate which way he was leaning, he did ask attorneys to let him know what his options are if he does so.

Bell's alleged conflict was that he represented one of the owners of American Coin Co. in the probe of the programming scam, although the owner, Frank Romano, was cleared of any involvement before the murder had occurred.

Assistant District Attorney J. Charles Thompson, when he was a district judge, had authorized wiretaps in the police investigation into the slaying of programmer Larry Volk. But Thompson testified Thursday that he remembers no details of the case.

Deputy District Attorney David Wall, when he was a private attorney, had drafted a court document on behalf of Beckman's husband, who also was being investigated in the case, although he is not named in the current indictment.

Deputy District Attorney Eric Jorgenson became a witness in the murder case because he had interviewed Volk during the probe of the slot machine computer scam.

"I think it's a rat's nest," Special Public Defender Michael Cherry commented after Thursday's hearing. He represents Bruno, who also is known as John Sipes.

Bell said his office looked at the alleged conflicts and decided they didn't rise to the level where the office should voluntarily step away from the case in favor of a special prosecutor.

"We wouldn't resist if we didn't believe there was reason to do so," he told the judge, who will make his decision after hearing arguments on June 3 from defense attorneys and Deputy District Attorney David Roger.

Bruno, who is being held without bail, and Beckman, who is free on $200,000 bail, were implicated in the plot to kill 49-year-old Larry Volk by the actual gunman, David Lemons.

Roger has said that Lemons, who unexpectedly volunteered his story to police in a note from his prison cell, "found religion and came forward to cleanse his soul so to speak."

Lemons was tried for the murder in 1993 but was acquitted by a jury.

Beckman, 52, was arrested in early November in a town northwest of Victorville, Calif., and Bruno, 37, was apprehended a week later in Phoenix.

Prosecutors said the break in the case came in September when Lemons, a Jean Prison inmate, admitted that he was the one who fired the single bullet into Volk's head as the victim worked on his car in front of his mobile home.

Lemons has told authorities that Beckman and Bruno were the ones who funneled $5,000 to him for the murder.

Volk apparently became a target after informing gaming authorities that the operators of American Coin had instructed him to alter the computer chips in video poker machines to prevent the largest payoff.

After Volk told authorities of the computer chip scam, the company was closed and the gaming licenses of the owners -- Rudolph and Rudy M. LaVecchia and Frank Romano -- were surrendered in a deal that required them to pay a $1 million fine to the state in February 1990.

American Coin, at the time, was the state's fourth largest slot route operator with more than 1,000 machines in various Las Vegas locations. It was alleged that 300 machines were altered.

Beckman and Bruno, her nephew, were said to be friends of the LaVecchias.

Although Romano's license was revoked, it was not alleged that he was part of the computer chip scam.