Local news briefs for May 10, 2000

Wednesday, May 10, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

Metro ID's officer who fired at car

The Metro Police officer who fired several shots at a car coming toward him Sunday night was identified this morning as Officer Darren Hecker.

Hecker was one of several officers called to Alexander Villas Park about 7 p.m. Sunday after a report of a large fight. Hecker, 29, saw a car accelerating northbound on Lincoln Road and heading right for him, police said.

Hecker, an officer for three years, fired several shots at the car. The car continued past him and was later found in a garage in the 3800 block of Kellogg Avenue, police said.

The driver of the car, 29-year-old Jamal Wheatley, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. A 23-year-old passenger was struck in the leg apparently by a bullet fragment and was treated at University Medical Center and released, police said.

Name of strangled woman is released

A woman who was found strangled in a desert area in northeast Las Vegas Monday night was identified this morning as 30-year-old Ivy D. Thomas.

The Clark County coroner's office examined the woman's body and found evidence that she was strangled four to six days before her body was found, Metro Police homicide detectives said.

Thomas, a Las Vegas resident, was found covered with wood in some bushes southwest of the intersection of Nellis Boulevard and Craig Road, detectives said.

Thomas' slaying was the 33rd homicide in Metro's jurisdiction this year. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call police at 229-3521 or Secret Witness at 385-5555.

Judge denies reporter's claim

A lawsuit filed in 1998 by a former Las Vegas Sun police reporter against Metro Police and Sheriff Jerry Keller has been dismissed by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Johnnie Rawlinson has ruled the reporter, Cathy Scott, did not suffer damages when Keller and other police officials refused to be interviewed.

Scott filed the complaint in U.S. District Court Sept. 15, 1998, claiming Metro officials violated her First Amendment right to free speech and her 14th Amendment right to due process.

On Tuesday Rawlinson dismissed the lawsuit, saying Scott did not show she was denied access to public information and that police officials have the right not to answer questions from reporters.

Scott was hired by the Sun on Nov. 16, 1993, and assigned to the police beat two years later. She left the Sun shortly after being reassigned in May 1998.

Blitzstein figures given fed sentences

Two men swept up in the murder investigation of Las Vegas mob leader Herbie Blitzstein have been sentenced in U.S. District Court.

George Victor Nasse, 67, will spend two months in a federal prison on a charge of mail fraud. A car dealer with a history of fraud convictions, Nasse was also ordered Monday to perform 40 hours of community service.

Michael W. Harmon, 39, was sentenced Tuesday to one year of probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing the mail. Harmon was charged after he admitted to filing a false insurance claim.

The two men were among six people indicted last September during the investigation of an insurance fraud scheme hatched by the same people involved in the 1997 slaying of Blitzstein by those who wanted to take over his loan shark business.