Justices reverse Walters ruling

Monday, March 15, 1999 | 11:20 a.m.

The Nevada Supreme Court has reinstated a money-laundering indictment against professional gambler Billy Walters.

A three-judge panel led by Chief Justice Bob Rose ruled that District Judge Donald Mosley had wrongly dismissed the indictment last May against Walters and two associates on grounds that prosecutors had failed to show them all of the evidence they provided the county grand jury.

But Walters' lawyer, Richard Wright, said today he expected the indictment would be dismissed again on the same grounds that Mosley used to toss out a subsequent indictment in December.

After Mosley had dismissed the first indictment, prosecutors gave Walters the records he was seeking before they obtained the second indictment.

But Mosley then dismissed the second round of charges for different reasons. He ruled that prosecutors the second time failed to properly state that a crime of money laundering had occurred. The charges in the second indictment essentially are the same as those in the first.

The Nevada attorney general's office, which obtained both indictments, also appealed the second dismissal to the Supreme Court, which has yet to issue a decision in the case.

In its two-page order on the first indictment, handed down Feb. 24, the high court said:

"The state contends that the district court erred by dismissing the indictment based on respondents' alleged inability to prepare to testify before the grand jury because the state refused to provide them with copies of documents seized from their place of business."

"We agree. Although we are not unsympathetic to the circumstances that respondents faced in deciding whether to testify before the grand jury, the right to do so is limited and conditional."

The Supreme Court referred the case back to Mosley for further action.

The May indictment accused Walters and his associates of laundering proceeds from an international multimillion-dollar sports betting operation. Walters was described as one of the biggest sports bettors in the country.

"I don't expect anything to happen," Wright said of the Supreme Court's ruling. "This indictment is just as defective as the second one."

Wright said the high court misinterpreted the law in making its ruling.

Mosley had dismissed the indictment following a series of rare closed hearings that were opposed by the Sun. Last June, Mosley rejected an appeal by the Sun to unseal the case.

After the second indictment was returned, Walters, a prominent golf-course developer with city and county contracts, accused the attorney general's office of mounting a vendetta against him.

He charged that David Thompson, the deputy attorney general handling the case, was out of control, a charge Thompson denied.

Walters said his second indictment was allowed to come about because Thompson didn't have anyone in the attorney general's office to rein him in.

"They're telling all of America that a deputy attorney general is going to spend this much time and resources prosecuting a resident of the state of Nevada for making a bet," Walters said at the time.

Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, the attorney general's office had been considering taking the case to the grand jury for a third time.