Coroner says death report will take another week

Ken Ritter

Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2001 | 12:21 p.m.

LAS VEGAS - It will take another week to complete a report on the death of a French citizen in a Las Vegas jail.

"We're completing our reports and Metro police are finalizing their investigation reports," Clark County Coroner Ron Flud said Tuesday, adding he will release his findings at a news conference next week. Flud had said the report would be available early this week.

On the day Philippe Le Menn's family arrived in France with his body, Flud offered no preliminary information about the Jan. 4 death of the 33-year-old restaurant manager and former Los Angeles resident.

Le Menn had been booked into the Clark County Detention Center on misdemeanor charges of annoying a minor, causing a disturbance on school property and disorderly conduct.

Le Menn's family, supported by the French consulate in Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, claim that jail guards beat Le Menn to death.

The coroner's report - and Flud's ruling on whether the death resulted from trauma, natural causes or could not be determined - is being sought by the Le Menn family and investigative agencies including the FBI, U.S. Justice Department, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell.

The district attorney and state attorney general have said the coroner's report will show whether a crime was committed.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU in Las Vegas, said Tuesday that he has no confidence in the county coroner's ruling.

"We're certainly not relying on the coroner's findings to make an objective determination about what happened in the jail the night of January 4th," Peck said.

Flud said a forensic pathologist hired by the family, Dr. Miles Jones, from Kansas City, Mo., spent the day Monday at the coroner's laboratory in Las Vegas conducting his independent review.