Phone fiasco blamed on loose wires

Tuesday, May 9, 2000 | 11:20 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An investigation by the organized crime bureau of the Metro Police says a loose wire accidentally connected a police telephone with a defense lawyer in the Billy Walters money-laundering case and that there was no illegal wiretap of the phones of attorneys.

The confidential report, which details the police side of the investigation into the eavesdropping was released Monday by Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa.

The crossed wires, "was an unforeseeable and accidental event of no consequence to the pending prosecution," said Detective Larry Hanna of the Criminal Intelligence Section.

But JoNell Thomas, one of the defense lawyers, said the explanation "sounds fishy to me." She added, "Do I believe it? Not a chance." It was her office phone that was tied into a police line. She said police behavior in this case has "been unusual."

The May 5 investigation report, signed by Hanna and Lt. Patrick Neville of the quality assurance bureau, said the phone connection between police and Thomas was a "technical accident."

Still unsolved is how defense attorneys got a recorded telephone conversation of two police officers suggesting there was a tap on the telephones of the lawyers for Walters, Hanna said. Thomas said the defense got the taped conversations "through lawful means."

Del Papa said Monday she would file an answer Wednesday asking District Judge Mark Gibbons to reject a motion brought by defense lawyers to dismiss the case because of illegal wiretaps. Del Papa will include the crime bureau probe plus other documents to back up her request.

Judge Gibbons has scheduled arguments for May 17 on the motion to dismiss the charges against Walters, Jimmie Hanley, John Tognino and Daniel Pray who were indicted on charges of siphoning money and information to and from illegal bookmakers in connection with a sports gambling operation.

Defense lawyer Richard Wright, who represents Walters, said he has a recording of a conservation between two police workers with one of them saying he believed he discovered a wiretap of one of the defense lawyers.

The police inquiry said the conversations took place between Detective Russ White, director of the Secret Witness Program for Clark County; Dianne Deiss, police department law enforcement technician assigned to the Secret Witness office and William Hengler, Jr., corporate investigator for America West Airlines.

White told investigators he was having a "bleed over" problem with his office telephone in City Hall on April 24 and directed Deiss to contact the general services division to have it repaired.

"On April 25 during a morning conversation with Hengler, White and Hengler heard a series of clicks on their telephone, to which Hengler jokingly remarked that it was probably 'internal affairs hooking up their wire.' "

"Seconds later a woman's voice was heard on the telephone, and apparently as neither White or Hengler recall specifically, the woman challenged White and Hengler's presence on the line, to which White may have stated that he was with Metro Police. The woman then said she was with an attorney's office, which represented Billy Walters."

The two men immediately hung up. White called Deiss on their telephone intercom line to again ask the line be repaired. And he told her to contact the intelligence section regarding the possible existence of an intercept of wire connections.

In his investigation, Hanna said, "It was this conversation between White and Deiss, wherein White leapt to the conclusions that he had inadvertently crossed wires into an intercept of the Walters' attorneys' offices by the intelligence section, that the defense attorneys' office had intercepted and recorded."

White said during another telephone call, he heard what he believed to be an answering machine that stated, "You have reached the law offices of JoNell Thomas."

A short time later, a Sprint official told White that a loose wire had crossed his telephone with that of telephone number 471-6565, which was the law office of Thomas. White told investigators he thought nothing more of the incident until the tape of his conversation with Deiss was made public.

The crime bureau contacted Sprint repairman Rick Dufalt who inspected White's telephone problem, which was found in the main switching building for Sprint at 125 South Las Vegas Boulevard.

"Dufalt said that apparently, while service was being performed in a switching box, a small piece of wire fell onto a panel making contact between two telephone terminal switches immediately adjacent to one another making them a virtual party line," the investigation said.

"These two switches happened to be those of White's office phone and a telephone within the offices of JoNell Thomas. The wire was removed, and the problem corrected on April 25, immediately upon it being discovered."

None of the parties, outside the law offices, were involved in any investigation of the Walters case "and no information was learned or disseminated pursuant to the overhead conversations," Hanna said.

"The only unresolved issue pertains to the taped conversation between White and Deiss. This inquiry would be complete if it could be determined how the conversation was recorded in JoNell Thomas' office. Was it inadvertently captured on a message machine, or was it an intentional recording by one of the office staff."

Thomas wondered how detective White "made a leap that the law office was associated with the Billy Walters case. That's a big leap," without anything to connect her office with Walters.

How she obtained the tape will come out May 17, she said. There are too many strange coincidences in this case, she said.

For instance, she said police falsely accused her and other defense lawyers of having an improper ex-parte meeting with the presiding judge. And three or four police officers, she said show up at every court hearing, even on minor motions. She suggested they may be after a "$3 million forfeiture," meaning the money involved in the Walters case.