Gates will decide on Walters judge

Bill Gang

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2000 | 10:53 a.m.

Chief District Judge Lee Gates said today he will determine whether fellow District Judge Donald Mosley should preside over the money-laundering case of sports bettor and politically connected golf course operator Billy Walters and three others.

Mosley had dismissed two previous indictments against the quartet involving the same nationwide betting operation, and Deputy Attorney General David Thompson filed documents seeking to have the judge ruled ineligible to preside over the third indictment.

Mosley has refused to voluntarily step down, and because of that, it falls to the chief judge to determine whether Thompson's questions about Mosley's impartiality are valid.

A March 2 hearing date has been set.

While Mosley could have stepped down and had the Walters case assigned to another judge, the judge instead bristled at Thompson's accusations and filed affidavits in January denying bias for or against anyone in the case.

The prosecutor contends that Mosley's personal friendship with one of the defense lawyers in the case is so close that he couldn't be impartial.

While friendship with lawyers is not a reason in Nevada for a judge to be removed from a case, Thompson noted that veteran attorney John Moran Jr. testified on the judge's behalf in a hotly contested child custody matter involving Mosley's son in 1994.

In addition to the allegations of favoritism, court documents claim that Mosley has become embroiled in something of a feud with Metro Police detectives involved in the controversial case.

Thompson suggested that Mosley should be removed from the Walters case because "an impartial observer would reasonably question his impartiality under these circumstances."

Walters is charged in the money-laundering indictment along with James Jay Hanley, computer expert Daniel Pray and New Yorker John Tognino.

Moran is Hanley's lawyer.

The third money-laundering indictment, like the others, alleges the betting operation funneled money and information to and from illegal bookmakers across the country through his Sierra Sports Inc. using a bank of computers and telephone lines.

There are no allegations that Walters and his associates ever acted as bookmakers and took bets on sporting events, but Thompson has said that even placing bets with illegal bookies and transferring the cash across state lines is a crime.

The re-indictment was designed to address some of the legal problems of the past indictments.