Motion filed to dismiss Kenny case

Adrienne Packer

Tuesday, April 10, 2001 | 11:11 a.m.

A Las Vegas attorney representing Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny in her pending ethics case has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, according to a letter sent to the state Ethics Commission.

Echoing concerns he relayed to the ethics board in February, Frank Cremen complained the review panel that recommended a full hearing never specified how Kenny violated state ethics codes.

Kenny is scheduled to appear before the commission April 19 to defend allegations that she tried to persuade former Clark County employee Gene Smith and current employee Bradd Banaszak to break into the government center.

Smith, who filed the complaint late last year, claims Kenny wanted documents showing fellow commissioner Mary Kincaid Chauncey used county workers and equipment to help with her campaign. Kincaid Chauncey was running against Kenny's close friend Stephanie Smith at the time of Kenny's alleged scheme.

Cremen has argued that in Gene Smith's affidavit it is unclear how Kenny violated a law that prohibits elected officials from using their positions to seek or accept favors.

In his April 6 letter to the Ethics Commission, Cremen likens the ethics investigation to a criminal prosecution and said the same laws related to outlining specific charges apply.

"In this state the Nevada Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that a defendant in a criminal proceeding be given notice of the particular act or acts alleged to have been committed by the accused as will enable him to properly defend against the accusations," Cremen wrote.

Cremen is out of town and could not be reached for comment Monday and today.

Polly Hamilton, executive director of the Ethics Commission, said today that the board has not responded to Cremen's letter and is scheduled to hear the case later this month.

"It's still very much set for hearing; the commission will not be meeting before then to deal with it," Hamilton said. "What I anticipate is we will deal with it in the course of deliberating on the entire hearing."

Rather than outlining exactly what in the ethics complaint against Kenny constituted a violation, ethics commissioners in February referred Cremen to minutes of the review panel's two meetings.

At the time, commission chairman Peter Bernhard said the full board was not privy to information reviewed by the two-member screening panel.

Cremen wrote in his letter that even the review panel called the case a "very murky situation." He said he is unsure whether panel members believed Kenny violated the code because Gene Smith alleges she offered him a favor by saying she would get his job back if he was able to help her.

The review panel acknowledged violations of the state ethics code requires two elements: seeking or accepting gifts or favors or improperly influencing a public officer to depart from his faithfulness to his public duty.

Cremen said the review panel never discussed the latter element of the code.