Metro official: Wiretaps not used in case

Keith Paul and Steve Kanigher

Monday, May 8, 2000 | 11:42 a.m.

While Billy Walters' lawyers claim to have a recording suggesting a wiretap on their phone, a Metro Police official told the Sun that detectives have no taps on anyone related to the money-laundering case.

Defense attorney Richard Wright last week said he obtained a tape that allegedly contains a brief conversation between two Metro employees with one saying he believed he stumbled onto a wiretap of one of the lawyers involved with the Walters' case.

Metro Deputy Chief Mike Hawkins has said there were no illegal wiretaps connected with the Walters' case, but would not comment on whether there were legal taps.

But another police official, who requested anonymity, said "there are absolutely no wiretaps" and added, "if we did have one, it wouldn't be picked up" accidentally by a third party.

Allegations that Metro Police wiretapped the telephones of defense attorneys in the Billy Walters sports gambling case have produced a variety of rumors and theories about what occurred.

Many of those questions are expected to be answered at a May 17 hearing before Clark County District Judge Mark Gibbons on a defense motion to have indictments against Walters and three co-defendants dismissed because of the wiretap allegations.

Sheriff Jerry Keller said all of the facts of this case will come out in court, and he didn't want to comment until after the hearing.

"We're looking forward to the hearing," Keller said.

Walters and co-defendants Jimmie Hanley, Daniel Pray and John Tognino were indicted last November, charged with funneling money and information to and from illegal bookmakers in connection with a sports gambling operation. Walters is a Las Vegas golf course developer who also contributes large sums of money to Republican and Democratic political campaigns.

The defense has a tape recording it believes contains a conversation in which a male Metro Police official tells a female employee he thinks he stumbled onto "one of our wiretaps. It was to one of the attorney's offices ... that they're doing on Billy Walters."

The male voice, identified by police sources as that of Metro Detective Russ White, director of Secret Witness, told the woman that he came to that conclusion during a prior phone conversation with Billy Hengler, a corporate investigator for America West Airlines at McCarran International Airport.

Police sources theorize that White's conversation with Hengler got crossed with a separate phone line to one of the defense attorney's offices. The theory is that White overheard a conversation on the other line that referred to Walters and one of his attorneys and mistakenly assumed he had stumbled onto a wiretap.

According to that theory, White then hung up and had a conversation with the woman while his phone line was still crossed with that of one of the attorneys. There has also been speculation that the conversation between White and the woman was recorded on an answering machine belonging to one of the defense attorneys while the lines remained crossed. White has declined to comment, referring questions to Metro spokesmen.

A police source said White put in a work order a couple of days before the recording of his conversation was made to have a phone line in the Secret Witness office checked out because of interference.

Sprint spokeswoman Detra Page said that phone lines can get crossed when wiring deteriorates, allowing one telephone wire to come in contact with another.

"Once it's crossed it remains crossed until it's repaired," Page said.

A team of Metro employees have been trying to determine how White overheard the conversation and then how his conversation was recorded. So far, according to a Metro source, the crossed telephone lines are the only explanation that they have found.

But Walters and defense attorneys Wright and JoNell Thomas of Las Vegas all said they remain convinced that an unlawful wiretap occurred and that police were merely trying to cover their tracks.

"If this is the best theory they can come up with, they will be laughed out of court," Walters said.

Wright said he was not even convinced that lines were crossed or that it was White's voice on the tape.

"I don't believe the police," Wright said. "They're only giving out disinformation."

Thomas and her fellow defense attorneys have declined to reveal how they got the tape. But Thomas said the crossed-line theory "seemed far-fetched" to her.

Keith Paul covers crime and public safety for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4057 or by e-mail at keith@lasvegassun.com.