AG office seeks delay in trial over Anzalone firing

Thursday, July 5, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

The attorney general's office is pressing hard to delay next week's trial in Mike Anzalone's defamation and wrongful termination lawsuit.

David Wasick, a special assistant attorney general, has filed notice with the Nevada Supreme Court that his office is appealing a recent ruling by District Judge James Mahan denying a motion for a change of venue in the case.

The attorney general's office believes the notice automatically gives the high court jurisdiction in the case and indefinitely delays the July 10 trial.

But Mahan has scheduled a 10 a.m. hearing Friday to listen to the attorney general's arguments.

Anzalone's Phoenix lawyer, Christine Manno, said she does not want a continuance and is ready to go to trial in a case that has dragged through the court system for more than three years.

Anzalone filed the suit against Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and several of her deputies in February 1998 alleging he was forced to resign because he refused to unlawfully seek the bank records of then Gaming Control Board Chairman Bill Bible in a secret intelligence probe of Del Papa's political enemy.

Del Papa denied that such an investigation was conducted, and in a letter to the Sun, she contended that Anzalone was let go in 1996 because she had lost confidence in his investigative abilities.

Anzalone later charged in his suit that Del Papa defamed him in the letter.

Wasick wants the Supreme Court to reverse Mahan's decision not to move the trial to Reno.

He contends the attorney general's office can't get a fair trial in Las Vegas because of the publicity, primarily in the Sun, surrounding the case.

Documents uncovered in the case have disclosed that background and other investigative checks were done by the attorney general's office on Bible and other top gaming regulators from 1996 until 1998.

Bible, now president of the influential Nevada Resort Association, the casino industry's political arm, has been at odds with Del Papa since a 1995 clash at the Nevada Legislature.

Bible, who has publicly criticized the attorney general for prying into his background, was scheduled to give a sworn deposition in the lawsuit last month, but the deposition was abruptly called off by Del Papa's deputies.

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