District Court Department 21

Thursday, Aug. 15, 2002 | 9:20 a.m.

Eight seats are contested in District Court election, with several candidates competing for the open seats created by two new departments.

Valoria J. Vega, Ron D. Parraguirre, Joseph Bonaventure, Lee Gates, Jennifer Togliatti, Michael Douglas, Michelle Leavitt, Mark Ralph Denton, Sally Loehrer, John S. McGroarty, Michael A. Cherry, Nancy M. Saitta and Allan R. Earl are all running unopposed for re-election.

Department 21

Five candidates -- Valerie Adair, Gerard Bongiovanni, Eva Guo, Ron Israel and Leonard Root -- are competing for the newly created Department 21.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Adair has worked with the office since 1990, specializing in the prosecution of complex white-collar crimes, fraud cases and exploitation of the elderly. She is a supervising attorney for the Clark County grand jury and has worked on local and state wide task forces in dealing with abuse and exploitation of the elderly and also computer and high-tech crime.

Former District Judge Bongiovanni lost his re-election bid after one term in 1996 following his indictment for allegedly accepting bribes while in office. He was acquitted of all of the charges in October 1998. Bongiovanni worked as the deputy city attorney for North Las Vegas before going into private practice in 1977.

Guo served a deputy public defender in Clark County and as general counsel for Utstarcom Inc. before her current work as a private attorney. She also served as a law clerk federal Judge Johnnie Rawlinson and was a regional representative for Sen. Harry Reid.

Israel has worked as a private attorney in Las Vegas for more than 20 years, having owned his own practice for the last 10. He's currently a judge pro tempore for District Court and has worked on the court appointed arbitration panel.

Root also has more than 20 years of experience as a private attorney, handling insurance issues, bankruptcies, administrative law and divorces.

He also worked as an adjuster and attorney for Farmer's Insurance. If elected, Root said he would work to weed out complaints from the courtroom to increase efficiency using arbitration or mediation.