Judge OKs hitman trial

Kim Smith

Wednesday, March 29, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

A judge has ruled that the Clark County district attorney's office may prosecute a case involving a man accused of hiring a hitman to kill a deputy district attorney.

During a hearing Tuesday, District Judge Mark Gibbons denied the request by Larry Brooks' lawyer to disqualify the district attorney's office.

Brooks is serving six life terms for robbing and sexually assaulting an 85-year-old woman. In the current case, he is charged with hiring a hitman to kill the assault victim as well as Teresa Lowry, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the sexual assault and robbery case.

Defense attorney Peter Christiansen tried to persuade Gibbons that it would be unfair for Deputy District Attorney Tom Carroll to try Brooks because Carroll worked with Lowry in the DA's special victims unit for an extended period of time.

Lowry tried Brooks, 19, in the sexual assault case in December, and a jury took just 10 minutes to convict him on five charges.

"There is no way for Mr. Brooks to have any degree of certainty as to whether Mr. Carroll and Ms. Lowry have collaborated with the prosecution," Christiansen wrote in his motion.

Gibbons said that while the motion was interesting, there isn't sufficient evidence to show that a conflict of interest exists.

According to court documents, Brooks' cellmate at the Clark County Detention Center told police a few months before the trial that Brooks wanted to have Lowry and his victim killed.

The cellmate agreed to tape further conversations with Brooks if prosecutors and police agreed to move him to a jail in the Midwest. The authorities agreed and also gave him $700 in spending money.

After hearing the results, an undercover officer visited Brooks at the jail and, using the code name "Slayer," discussed the murder plot with Brooks.

Authorities said Brooks promised the officer $5,000 if he killed the elderly victim with $500 of the money coming up front.

Christiansen said the tape and the testimony from the undercover officer should be thrown out because under the Fifth Amendment statements made by suspects during interrogations are inadmissible unless they've been read their rights.

Gibbons will hear arguments on those defense motions on May 8.