Officer to face additional scrutiny

Keith Paul

Friday, May 5, 2000 | 10:23 a.m.

A North Las Vegas Police detective already awaiting a criminal trial in connection with an attack of a woman in a Home Depot parking lot now faces an police internal investigation that could lead to his firing.

Detective William Brooks has been served with papers that he is under investigation by internal affairs and will be questioned about the incident, police spokesman Lt. Chris Larotonda said Thursday.

Brooks, 42, is scheduled to be arraigned next week on several felony charges including kidnapping stemming from the Feb. 20 incident where he is accused of assaulting a woman in the parking lot of the store on Rainbow Boulevard and Alta Drive. He has been suspended with pay from the department since his arrest.

Internal investigations do not start until the trial is over or if the investigation will not interfere with the prosecution of the case. The district attorney told police an internal investigation would not harm his case, Larotonda said.

Brooks' attorney, Robert Lucherini, who has handled all questions directed to the detective since he was released on bond a few days after his arrest, could not be reached for comment this morning.

Larotonda said police decided not to wait until after the trial to start the internal investigation because of some "compelling issues that need to be investigated." Some of those issues stem from comments Brooks made to the media while he was still in the Clark County Detention Center.

Larotonda would not say what those comments were. But in an interview with the Sun while he was still in the county jail, Brooks said he was collecting a $30,000 debt from a man for a third party and was being paid $10,000 for his efforts.

He claimed he approached a woman he thought was the wife of the man who owed the money. He would not say who he was working for but stated they were "shady characters."

The woman he approached in that parking lot was 36-year-old Lynn Malloy -- not the woman he claimed he was trying to find. She testified at an April hearing that Brooks grabbed her from behind, forced her in the car and struggled with her. She testified Brooks struck her several times as she fought with him and then pulled out a gun, pointed it at her and threatened to kill her.

Brooks didn't testify at that preliminary hearing and has so far refused to tell investigators who he was working for.

Brooks won't have the choice of not telling North Las Vegas Police internal affairs investigators who he was working for. Police officers can be ordered to answer questions under the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Garrity vs. New Jersey.

Anything Brooks says during the questioning by internal affairs investigators cannot be used against him in the criminal proceeding, but refusing to answer questions could be considered insubordination. "He can be disciplined for that up to and including termination," Larotonda said.

Brooks also would be fired if he was convicted of the felony charges in Clark County District Court.