Former inspector pleads not guilty

Bill Gang

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 11:28 a.m.

Former Clark County building inspector Marcus McAnally pleaded not guilty today to 13 felony counts of falsifying inspection records to show that construction projects by a friend's company had been approved.

District Judge John McGroarty set an Oct. 18 trial date and let the 45-year-old defendant remain free without bail.

McAnally, a former Metro Police officer, came to court dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and casual pants.

Defense attorney Pat McDonald indicated he intends to challenge the grand jury indictment but has not yet received a copy of the transcript of the grand jury testimony, although it was supposed to be prepared within 10 days of the May 19 indictment.

McDonald added that he has not yet seen the 800 pages of evidence in the district attorney's file that will have to be examined before pre-trial motions can be filed to dismiss the charges.

The projects that were the subject of the criminal probe involved remodeling and renovations at Strip resorts and one at McAnally's father's house, all between Jan. 7, 1994, and April 9, 1997.

The 13 counts alleging illegal handling of papers by a public officer are punishable by up to four years in prison for each count.

All the work was done by Tommy Ford Contracting, although Deputy District Attorney Valerie Adair said that Ford, McAnally's close friend, is not a target of prosecutors.

Adair said the evidence against McAnally was uncovered through searches during past months into a security program attached to his computer.

The charges against McAnally allege he created false documents approving construction projects, using the names of the actual inspectors assigned to the jobs.

But the security program in the department's computer system tracked the access code of persons originating documents, no matter what the names were on the resulting reports.

The questionable documents were shown to the inspectors whose names appeared on them and they confirmed they had not been the authors.

The charges involve inspections at four hotel-casinos, including the former Sands, Bally's, Harrah's and the Tropicana. Other charges involve a slab inspection on a Homestead Road house owned by the defendant's father and a plumbing inspection on a Russell Road building owned by Ford.

In 1998, McAnally portrayed himself as a whistle-blower who drew the wrath of county officials.

But that was about the time when disgruntled co-workers at the county's building department were complaining of questionable professional conduct by McAnally, according to officials in the district attorney's office.

The complaints included allegations that he obtained building materials for his personal use from contractors and demanded jackets from casinos, like the Frontier and the Hard Rock, where he was inspecting projects.

There were no allegations that McAnally demanded or accepted cash.