Former DA accused of taking brothel payoffs

Monday, March 15, 1999 | 9:43 a.m.

Former Mustang Ranch bookkeeper Joanne Olcese skimmed "several thousand dollars each week" in prostitution earnings to make "cash payments" to Virgil Bucchianeri, according to a document filed in a U.S. District Court case.

Bucchianeri kept some of the money for himself and distributed the rest to other county elected officials, including Sheriff Bob Del Carlo and Commissioner Henry Bland, Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Kemp A. Shiffer says in the document.

Bucchianeri, who served as district attorney from 1970 to 1978 and from 1986 to 1994, said the payments never happened.

"I'm going to deny that," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I can't say too much more because I've got lawyer-client relationships in there, too. Naturally, I would deny anything like that."

Del Carlo, who opted against re-election last year after serving as sheriff for 28 years, has denied receiving any payoffs. He now is president of the company that owns Mustang Ranch and is the bordello manager.

Bland died in 1997.

A federal grand jury last year indicted Olcese, former brothel owner Joe Conforte, former Storey County Commissioner Shirley Colletti and others on a variety of charges, including racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering.

The indictment also alleges that Conforte and others paid $3,000 a month to Del Carlo and Bland over more than four years in an effort to influence them. Del Carlo was not indicted.

Earlier this year, a court document alleged Colletti received $10,000 a month in payoffs from Mustang Ranch while she was on the commission.

Colletti, also a former manager of the infamous brothel 12 miles east of Reno, served on the commission from 1988 to 1996.

Olcese, who has pleaded guilty to a racketeering count, is cooperating with federal officials and is expected to testify against Colletti at a trial later this year.

Conforte owned the brothel from 1955 to 1990, when he fled the country to avoid prosecution on income tax evasion charges. He's believed to be in South America and is considered a fugitive, federal authorities said.