Prominent Southern Nevada attorney Fadgen dies at 62

Ed Koch and Kim Smith

Monday, March 12, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

John P. Fadgen, regarded as a top defense attorney in Las Vegas during the 1970s who won an acquittal for flamboyant silver king and ex-gubernatorial candidate James Ray Houston, died Friday. He was 62.

Fadgen was found dead Friday in his home by friends Tom Pitaro, a fellow attorney, and Tom Dillard, a private investigator.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 36 years will be 1 p.m. Wednesday at Palm Mortuary-Cheyenne. Visitation will be 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at that location.

"John was a great lawyer -- he was one of the leading criminal defense attorneys in the community," Las Vegas attorney John Momot said today. "I tried cases with him, and he was even-handed and very competent."

Nowhere was that more evident than in 1977, when Fadgen was appointed to defend Houston, who was accused of conning investors out of $3 million in a silver certificate scheme through his Western Pacific Gold and Silver Exchange.

Faced with 24 counts of fraud, the 1974 Independent American Party gubernatorial candidate received a brilliant defense from Fadgen and won acquittal on all counts on Sept. 5, 1978. Houston, however, was convicted in an unrelated mail fraud case in 1983.

Fadgen, who served twice as North Las Vegas city attorney, also won acquittal for Wilbur Kolberg in a 1970s case in which Kolberg was charged with mail fruad in connection with a plan to sell coffee and snack products to small firms.

In more recent times, Fadgen defended reputed Buffalo, N.Y., mobster Robert Panaro, one of the defendants in the slaying of reputed Las Vegas mobster Herbie Blitzstein. Panaro was acquitted in 1999 of all charges related to Blitzstein's January 1997 slaying but was found guilty of extorting Blitzstein to take over Blitzstein's loan-sharking operation.

In a Dec. 18, 1977, Sun story, Fadgen said his hobby was his work.

"I'm in the business to have a little fun. An attorney can't do all contested divorces and leases," he said. "Besides, I like working in federal court," where Houston was being tried.

Born April 27, 1938, in Clinton, Mass., Fadgen came to Las Vegas in 1965, where he initially worked as a law clerk in federal court.

At 27 Fadgen was appointed assistant North Las Vegas city attorney under Bill Barker just before Christmas 1965. A year later Fadgen became the city attorney.

During his first brief tenure, in August 1967, he was ejected from Clark County grand jury proceedings after insisting he be allowed to be present when North Las Vegas city employees were being questioned in a potential bribery case.

He quit that then-$16,000-a-year post in April 1968 to work for a local private law firm of which U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was a partner.

In 1976 Fadgen served as an attorney for a group that instigated the recall of North Las Vegas Mayor Bud Cleland and Councilmen Wendell Waite and Dan Gray. The trio was ousted in October 1976 following a heated political battle.

Fadgen returned to the post of North Las Vegas city attorney in November 1976 but resigned the next June when he and then City Manager Ray Schweitzer didn't see eye to eye over settlements of back assessments due at the Nellis Industrial Park.

During his career, Fadgen also represented North Las Vegas police and firemen in wage contract negotiations and had served as attorney for the Air Pollution Control Board.

Fadgen is survived by sons John Fadgen of Boise, Idaho and Kevin, Michael and Brian Fadgen, all of Las Vegas; a stepson, Kevin Matthews of San Antonio; daughters Kathleen Chilton of Alexandria, Va., and Kara Montanarella of Las Vegas; a stepdaughter, Kelly Papock of Las Vegas; his mother, Dorothy Fadgen, of Clinton, Mass.; nine brothers and sisters; and six grandchildren.