Judge Mosley sues discipline panel

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

District Judge Donald Mosley, who faces a hearing next week before the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, has filed a federal lawsuit against the commission and has asked a federal judge to halt the proceeding.

The 17-year judge, through his attorney Neil Galatz, alleges he is the victim of a vindictive former lover, biased commission members and members who were appointed to the commission improperly.

"The so-called charges assertedly being brought against the plaintiff have resulted from a corruption of the commission processes and are merely a continuation of a private, compulsive-obsessive vendetta against plaintiff by the ultimate complainant to the commission, one Terry Figliuzzi, and various others," Mosley's lawsuit states.

Mosley is scheduled to appear before the commission Monday to answer charges that he showed favoritism to a criminal defendant who testified on his behalf during a bitter and lengthy child custody battle with Figliuzzi.

Although she is referred to as Figliuzzi in Mosley's court documents, she changed her name to Terry Mosley in 1995.

The judge also has been accused of using official stationery to write school officials about his son, who was born in 1992.

Mosley could lose his job as a result of the hearing, which is expected to last one week.

Named in Mosley's suit are Leonard Gang, executive director of the commission, Mary Boetsch, special prosecutor, and commission members Donald Campbell, James Beasley, B. Mahlon Brown III, Larry Hicks, Frank Brusa, Diana Glomb, Steve Chappell, Mike Memeo and Connie Steinheimer.

Gang said Tuesday he had not seen the lawsuit. He said he and commission members are not allowed to comment on pending litigation anyway. Boetsch did not return phone calls Tuesday.

The lawsuit provides details going back to the beginning of the Mosleys' custody dispute, long before Campbell and Beasley were commission members.

According to the lawsuit, before Campbell became a commission member he was a special prosecutor for the commission, and he investigated Washoe County District Judge Jerry Whitehead.

Whitehead, after several other judges recused themselves, ended up presiding over a portion of the Mosley child custody hearing.

Terry Mosley was not happy Whitehead remained on her case and approached Campbell to represent her, the lawsuit alleges. Campbell referred her to Beasley, who also reportedly had a problem with Whitehead.

The lawsuit alleges that Campbell hoped that Whitehead would be disciplined for his actions during the custody hearing and that Mosley would have charges filed against him with the commission.

When the commission began its investigation against the judge, Campbell did not tell anyone about his conversations with Terry Mosley, the lawsuit alleges. He did eventually recuse himself from the case, however.

Beasley, who ended up on the commission, too, also failed to immediately recuse himself from the Mosley investigation and ended up "informally influencing" the results, the lawsuit says.

Mosley alleges that Gang did not have the constitutional right to appoint Hicks and Brown to the commission and only appointed them so he could "stack the commission with adjudicators he prefers."

The lawsuit also accuses Gang of violating state statutes by "publicly depreciating certain defenses" Mosley has raised.

Furthermore, Gang kept secret the fact that Terry Mosley has been helping the commission investigate Mosley, the lawsuit alleges.

"Ms. Figliuzzi has been allowed to play a surreptitious investigative role, personally searching for data she believes to reflect adversely on plaintiff and funneling it to" the defendants, the lawsuit says.

Documents faxed to Galatz by Gang show they originally came from "T. Mosley," the lawsuit says.

As for Boetsch, the lawsuit alleges she was selected to handle the case by Campbell, who shouldn't have been involved in the case. Moreover, Galatz claims she knows Gang did not have the right to appoint Hicks and Brown to the commission.

The lawsuit alleges Brusa granted a TV station's request to film Mosley's hearing out of vindictiveness and without giving Galatz a chance to object to the request.

Brusa made the decision "with a purpose to further stigmatize the plaintiff, so that his reputation is irreparably damaged and his ability to remain in office is destroyed even when he is ultimately cleared of the pretextual charges," the lawsuit states.

Glomb, Chappell, Memeo and Steinheimer are named in the suit because they have "ratified and condoned" the behavior of the others, the lawsuit states.

Mosley is asking that a federal judge first issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the hearing from going forward Monday. He then wants a permanent injunction prohibiting the hearing from ever going forward.

He also is seeking unspecified damages.