Columnist Jon Ralston: Real flip-flop: Malone comes out ahead

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2000 | 9:54 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

The first thing you notice about the Gaming Control Board's complaint against Station Casinos is the detail. It is the Russian novel of legal documents, complete with blow-by-blow narration of meetings, invoices and correspondence.

The second thing you notice is the phrase "full and absolute power," a description of the Nevada Gaming Commission's authority to punish. The state's regulatory authorities have the kind of power that Soviet dictators could only dream of.

The third thing you notice is how much trouble Station Casinos executive Mark Brown, a well-liked community luminary, made for himself by his heavy-handed tactics and deception. He will be fortunate not to be sent to the equivalent of the political Gulag.

It's easy to forget while wading through the six-count complaint that could cost Station $600,000, and Brown his casino career, that this all began with a county commissioner who can't say "no." If Lance Malone had stuck to a commitment he made to Brown months before a controversial neighborhood casino was approved earlier this year, and not flip-flopped a few days before the vote after finally consenting to talk to the other side, none of this would have happened.

Instead, the world has turned upside down. The commissioner who publicly characterized himself as untrustworthy, and then was pilloried as such in a political hit piece, now has become a martyr to the cause of truth and is now calling his opponent a liar in a mail piece. Rather than being entombed by his word being exposed as no good, Malone has been buoyed by the controversy, portrayed himself as a victim, and is a favorite for re-election.

The complaint lays out in detail how Brown and consultant Tom Skancke orchestrated the infamous "You Just Can't Trust Lance Malone" mail piece and then how the Station executive lied to the media and the FBI about his involvement. Lying to the Fourth Estate isn't a crime -- but misleading or prevaricating to the FBI is a different story. And Brown's brandishing the FBI to threaten Malone with retribution also is a very serious matter.

Like Bill Clinton, Brown never would have been nabbed if it hadn't been for a tape recording, this one made by Malone and subsequently by the FBI after he approached the federal agency. Malone has said he was scared, intimidated even. And that's why he pulled the Linda Tripp act on Brown and then went to the feds.

But he wasn't so much fearful of his safety as he was of his political career. And he, with prodding from his tough, fierce attorney Don Campbell, knew they could nail Brown and perhaps reverse his political fortunes at the same time.

And that is what this thick complaint now cements. It is a startling indictment of Brown's carelessness and a compendium of juicy political tidbits for Malone to use in his "I am a victim" campaign.

Can Brown get licensed after being accused of lying to federal law enforcement and using an FBI agent to intimidate a public official? "It will be an issue," Gaming Control Board member Bobby Siller said this week.

But Siller, who led the probe into Brown and Station, also seems to believe that a man's previously unblemished career should not be forever blackened by overzealousness and horrific judgment. But the Gaming Commission does have that incredible omnipotence to mete out whatever penalty it sees fit.

Brown may have to endure a savaging by gaming regulators for lying, but he still may survive with his reputation battered but his job intact. And maybe even a gaming license, if he's lucky.

As for Malone, his penalty for proving himself untrustworthy and declaring his word to be no good is likely to be a second term on the County Commission. No, folks, this isn't the stuff of Kafka or Tolstoy. This is the kind of story that could only be penned in America by the likes of Mark Twain, a Nevadan who would have appreciated the irony that right about now probably does not amuse Brown or his masters at Station Casinos.