Taxpayers to foot part of legal bills in Brown, Mack suits

Diana Sahagun

Friday, July 20, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

City taxpayers will pay a portion of the legal bills to fight accusations lodged against Las Vegas Councilmen Michael Mack and Larry Brown.

William Henry is the senior city attorney in charge of all lawsuits against the city, He has decided that the city attorney's office will not directly represent the two councilmen.

Rather, outside attorneys will be hired to handle portions of a lawsuit that accuses Mack and Brown of having ulterior motives for voting to deny a northwest car dealership.

Henry said he made the decision to hire two outside attorneys because he did not think he could be effective in representing the two councilmen plus the city.

All three are being sued by attorney Anthony Sgro, who is representing an East Coast car dealer who had his project denied by the City Council.

Henry said the ethical standard, when confronted with the possibility of representing multiple clients, was for him to determine if there could ever be a conflict during the lengthy litigation if he were to represent the city, Mack and Brown.

Henry said he could not be certain if a conflict would develop in the future, or if he could always give all three the best representation, so he made the decision to hire outside counsel.

"It is not unusual to hire outside counsel," he said.

Henry is negotiating to hire criminal defense lawyer Richard Wright to represent Mack, and civil lawyer Stan Hunterton to represent Brown.

Henry said he is negotiating with those particular attorneys because they have already been retained privately by the councilmen to litigate the ethics complaints filed against them. Those complaints will be heard by the Las Vegas Ethics Review Board and Nevada Ethics Commission.

Although Wright and Hunterton will represent the councilmen through the entire lawsuit, the city will only pay a portion of their fees -- the rest will be paid for by the councilmen.

City taxpayers will pay for Wright and Hunterton to litigate the portion of the lawsuit that accuses the councilmen of "malicious and fraudulent behavior" by voting June 6 against a car dealership proposed by John Staluppi Jr.

According to the lawsuit, Mack told Staluppi in the months before the vote that he was in favor of the project, and that the dealership would be approved with no problem. But on June 6 he led the motion to deny the car dealership on Rancho Drive, saying it did not conform with the Town Center plan, which groups all commercial uses in one area at Centennial Parkway and U.S. 95. Mack failed to disclose until days after the vote that he had taken a $60,000 loan from a rival car dealer who owns land within the area proposed for an auto village.

The lawsuit alleges Mack changed his mind about the project because of the loan he had received from Joe Scala.

Brown, who said he voted to deny the project because it violated the integrity of Town Center, is accused along with Mack of trying to broker a deal between Staluppi and Scala.

Because the contract is still in negotiations, Henry could not say how much the attorneys will be paid.

But Mack and Brown must pay the attorneys out of their own pocket to represent them in the remaining portion of the lawsuit that seeks their removal from office on a malfeasance charge. Henry said the removal proceedings will not handled by the city because it is a personal action, not relating to the councilmen's roles.

Mack and Brown must also pay their attorneys to represent them in their ethics complaints. The city does not represent council members in ethical matters because it is deemed a personal action against the council member, Henry said.

Henry said there is a separate procedure in dealing with the removal action portion of the lawsuit, which will make it easy to determine what the attorneys will be paid for by the city. He added that the attorneys will have to generate their billing statements -- which cross Henry's desk -- and justify their charges.