Thursday, July 27, 2000 | 11:16 a.m.
Margaret Rudin's new attorney is asking for a gag order to be placed on one of her confidants because he believes the man is using her for his own personal gain.
District Judge Joseph Bonaventure was scheduled to decide this morning whether Joseph DeLeo Jr. should be prevented from speaking about Rudin's case, but after DeLeo told the judge he wanted to seek an attorney's advice, the hearing was rescheduled for Aug. 3.
In the meantime, Bonaventure issued an order preventing DeLeo from visiting Rudin at the Clark County Detention Center.
Las Vegas attorney Michael Amador, who recently replaced the public defenders who were representing Rudin, asked for the emergency hearing on the gag order issue on Wednesday.
Amador said DeLeo held himself up as a pastor with the Central Christian Church, gained her complete trust and then convinced her to sell her book and movie rights to him for $1.
Rudin, who is jailed at the Clark County Detention Center, also gave DeLeo "private, personal and confidential documents" essential to her defense, and DeLeo has refused to give them back, Amador alleges.
According to Amador's motion, "DeLeo has breached the confidentiality of his relationship with Ms. Rudin as her clergyman and her counselor and...intends to use information received as a result of confidential and priviledged communications for his own profit."
In an interview Wednesday, Mike Bodine, executive pastor of Central Christian Church, said DeLeo has never been employed by the church, although he is a member.
"That disappoints us, to hear that that has been communicated to her. Nor do we condone that, if that is true," Bodine said. "From reading the motion, what he did was hugely unethical."
Bodine said he had heard DeLeo was a chaplain at the Clark County Detention Center, but he did not represent his church in doing so.
DeLeo, in an interview before the hearing, said he never asked Rudin for anything. In fact, he said, she wrote two letters to a local newspaper saying she wanted her story told so she could help others.
Any money earned from her book, TV and movie rights will be used to help substance abusers and prison ministries, DeLeo said.
"It's not for me to make money," DeLeo said. "All of it, 100 percent of it, will go for Christian ministries."
As far as the documents he allegedly has in his possession, DeLeo said he only has a few letters from Rudin and his $1 contract with her.
DeLeo said he visits Rudin every day, and she has never expressed any displeasure with him. In fact, he said, he only learned of Amador's allegations after watching the 6 p.m. news Wednesday.
"I'm not allowed to talk about anything between myself and a client, nor would I ever," DeLeo said, noting he counsels about two dozen prisoners five days a week.
DeLeo said he has worked as a full-time volunteer minister for Central Christian Church's prison ministry program for four months.
While he holds a doctorates degree in both Christian counseling and philosophy of religion and he has been certified by the American Association of Christian Counselors, DeLeo said neither are needed to preach to those in need.
"There are no qualifications to be a minister," DeLeo said. "If you crack open a Bible and minister, you're doing God's work. My motives are nothing but above board."
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