Leaked story on sex encounter causes uproar

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2000 | 11:26 a.m.

Fuming over a Las Vegas Sun story that revealed details of a closed hearing and gag order in the murder case of 15-year-old Conan Pope, his attorneys today asked for a hearing to determine who leaked the information.

Pope is charged in the Jan. 6 shooting death of his 62-year-old father, Frank Pope, during the man's tirade over dirty dishes left by the defendant and his 16-year-old sister.

Deputy Special Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld also asked Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo to disqualify the Clark County district attorney's office from prosecuting the case and appoint a special prosecutor.

Abbatangelo said he will make those decisions Thursday.

An evidentiary hearing likely would include everyone who was in the courtroom for the closed hearing in which a sexual encounter in the Clark County Detention Center between Conan Pope and a male prostitute was discussed.

Defense lawyers said they would not call the Sun reporter involved in an attempt to force a revelation about who told the story of what happened behind closed doors.

Court hearings in criminal cases are supposed to be open and public, but Pope's case became complicated because he is being charged as a juvenile in the sexual encounter at the jail -- an event that sources close to the case said was instigated by Pope.

Pope is charged as an adult in the shooting death of his father because under Nevada law, a juvenile charged with murder or attempted murder is automatically certified as an adult.

Because the Sun story discussed the sexual encounter and the pending criminal charges, Wildeveld today asked that the gag order be lifted so the defense can give its version of events and other details in the case.

Outside the courtroom, Wildeveld said that Frank Pope had a record for sexual molestation in Massachusetts.

The attempt to have a special prosecutor assigned to the case came because Wildeveld and Deputy Special Public Defender Dayvid Figler charged that the district attorney's office was mistreating Pope as an offender when he should have been considered a victim.

Figler said that even if Pope consented to have sex, he is not of an age that he can legally consent.

In similar cases involving adults having consensual sex with persons under 16, prosecutors charge the adult with a felony charge of statutory sexual seduction and name the juvenile as a victim.

"If the state thinks there can be consent, there are a lot of statutory sexual seduction cases (resulting in convictions) that are going to come back" and current cases that will have to be dismissed, Figler said.

Pope was in Juvenile Court on Monday as the first step in facing the charges, but Juvenile Judge Robert Gaston ordered the hearing to be closed to comply with Abbatangelo's prior orders.

The closed hearing was to inform a family -- that had agreed to provide a home for Pope while he is on house arrest -- of the sexual encounter and determine if they were still willing to take custody of the teenager.

They said they were, according to sources close to the case.

Nevada Press Association attorney Kevin Doty had challenged the closing of last week's hearing, arguing that prisoners don't have privacy rights that need to be protected.

But Abbatangelo said that there needs to be privacy in this "very narrow issue" because of Conan Pope's age.