Nevada news briefs

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1998 | 11:12 a.m.

FIREFIGHTER HONORED -- William D. Sorensen, a retired Las Vegas Fire Department assistant chief, will be honored for his service during a ceremony at the Nevada Firefighters Memorial Oct. 10 in Reno.

Sorensen was with the department for 35 years and was involved in legislation and union activities for workplace safety, working hours, pay and medical benefits. He helped organize the first Jerry Lewis Telethon to fight muscular dystrophy in Las Vegas more than 35 years ago.

A plaque will be placed at the memorial honoring Sorensen and Marvin Carr who served for more than 40 years as a member of the Yerington Fire Department and the Central Lyon County Fire District.

TRAFFIC COORDINATOR RESIGNS -- Paul Corbin, who was Nevada's traffic safety coordinator for 2 1/2 years, has resigned to return to Missouri to become chief of police in St. Charles.

Corbin worked for the Missouri Highway Patrol for 28 years before he was appointed chief of the Nevada Highway Patrol in 1994. He resigned from that job after less than two years amid complaints by troopers about his management style.

He switched to coordinator of the state Office of Traffic Safety which includes programs of seatbelt and drunk driving education, pedestrian, bike and motorcycle safety. He unsuccessfully sought to toughen the laws on DUI and seatbelts during the 1997 Legislature.

Corbin will be replaced by Joanne Keller, who is assistant chief in the registration division of the state Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety in Carson City. She has worked for the department since 1994. The appointment was announced Tuesday by Ray Sparks, deputy director of public safety.

STATE OVERCHARGED -- A former Las Vegas company has agreed to pay the state $150,000 for overcharging on items supplied to pregnant women in Clark County enrolled in Nevada's Medicaid program, the state attorney general's office said Tuesday.

Bellfour Medical Supplies Inc., now located in Long Beach, Calif., sold maternity panty hose and back supports to expectant Las Vegas Valley mothers with the Medicaid program picking up the bill. An investigation by the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit found the company had inflated the price.

Bellfour has withdrawn from the Nevada market, said Tim Terry, director of the fraud unit. "It is imperative that the taxpayers' money not go to the pockets of unscrupulous providers who own greed would drain the program's precious resources."

Bellfour closed its Las Vegas office a year when the Medicaid fraud investigation began.