News organizations go to court over sealed documents

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

The Las Vegas Sun and KLAS Channel 8 went to District Court today to gain access to sealed documents that may show the attorney general's office conducted a secret intelligence probe of top gaming regulators.

Attorney Dominic Gentile, who represents the news organizations, filed a motion asking District Judge James Mahan to allow him to argue in court for the public release of the documents.

Gentile also filed a 16-page motion formally asking Mahan to unseal the documents.

Mahan set a hearing at 1:30 p.m. next Thursday on whether the Sun and Channel 8 have standing to intervene in the case. He also scheduled a hearing at 1:30 p.m. March 2 on the motion to unseal the documents.

Gentile said in his papers that Mahan improperly slapped a confidentiality order on the documents in December when he turned them over to a lawyer for a former Del Papa investigator suing the attorney general.

The former investigator, Mike Anzalone, contends he was forced to resign in February 1996 because he wouldn't participate in the intelligence inquiry, which stemmed from the criminal probe of ex-Gaming Control Board computer expert Ron Harris.

The 900 pages of documents turned over to Anzalone are believed to detail Del Papa's clandestine efforts to gather intelligence on former Control Board Chairman Bill Bible, a political adversary, and other prominent people.

In his motion, Gentile said Mahan failed to give the public and the press a chance to voice legal objections before issuing what he described as a "gag order" on the documents.

"To exclude the public and the press from an opportunity to be heard on this issue runs afoul of the right of access to information that the First Amendment and the common law both recognize and protect," Gentile wrote.

"No countervailing governmental interest or individual right exists in this case to support this court's prior restraint of this right to gather and disseminate the information regarding this clearly newsworthy matter affecting the public's interest in honest government."

Gentile said Discovery Commissioner Thomas Biggar, who reviewed more than 50,000 pages of documents in the attorney general's Harris file, concluded that Del Papa's office had done "mass snooping" and that the case "cries out for disclosure."

Biggar, who oversees the sharing of evidence in civil cases, recommended that Mahan make public the 900 pages of intelligence documents.

The attorney general's office had fought to persuade Mahan to keep Anzalone and his Phoenix lawyer, Christine Manno, from seeing the documents.

But Mahan decided that Anzalone and Manno had a right to them as long as the two didn't disclose what was on the documents to anyone else.

Manno and some of those reportedly targeted in the intelligence investigation, including Bible, expressed their unhappiness with Mahan's decision in December.

Bible has urged that the entire Harris case be made public.

Gentile agreed in his papers.

"Openness to public scrutiny will promote public understanding of if, how and why the attorney general conducted an investigation of Gaming Control Board members, employees and others," Gentile said.

"Given the awesome power of the attorney general and the tremendous discretion with which she is invested, opening these proceedings will allow the public to be better informed of how she uses this power and exercises this discretion.

"This goes to the very core of one of the most important functions of news gathering."

Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at (702) 259-4067 or by e-mail at german@lasvegassun.com