Hunt defends ties to mortgage firm

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

Democrat John Hunt defended his campaign ties to Vestin Mortgage during a debate Monday by saying the company's executive is not trying to buy an attorney general.

During the final televised attorney general debate -- on Face to Face with Jon Ralston -- Hunt defended what will likely be hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company and its chief executive, Mike Shustek.

"This is an individual who's been maligned," Hunt said of Shustek. "He just wants somebody who's in the position to protect his constitutional rights."

Hunt said as an attorney who worked on Wayne Newton's libel case against NBC, he understands why someone who feels as though he has been maligned would want to take part in a campaign.

Shustek's company has been sanctioned by the state in the past and currently faces a lawsuit from a former borrower. Republican attorney general candidate Brian Sandoval's campaign filed a complaint with the state alleging that Shustek and other Vestin executives bundled campaign donations to Hunt through secretaries and other lower-level employees to skirt the state's $10,000 individual limit.

Sandoval said he does not regret filing the complaint despite having no hard evidence to suggest that bundling occurred. "We followed a process," he said.

"There hasn't been a proper response (from the Hunt campaign)," Sandoval said.

Hunt argued he could have filed a similar complaint based on campaign donations Sandoval -- the former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission -- received from the gaming industry by alleging bundling through pit bosses.

But Sandoval said he received the donations from the industry because he had been a fair commission chairman. During Monday's debate he cited fines against gaming companies under his watch, including a $450,000 fine against Stations Casinos and a $700,000 fine against MGM-MIRAGE.

The two also sparred over an ad the Hunt campaign is running suggesting "Brian Sandoval almost ruined our family" because he dragged his feet as an attorney involved in their adoption case.

Hunt defended the ad saying the couple came to him because they were still unhappy about what occurred in their case four years later.

The Reno couple featured in the ad adopted a baby born June 21, 1998, through Catholic Community Services. Sandoval was the agency's attorney. In October, Sandoval said he was asked to find the baby's biological father to determine whether that man wanted to exercise parental rights.

"It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack," Sandoval said.

After he located the father, the man initially expressed interest in parental rights before ultimately relinquishing those rights. The couple had already bonded with the baby for about nine months when the father was located in February 1999.

"I'm proud of the job I did," Sandoval said, adding that the television commercial is "disgusting."

Hunt said that if he had handled the case he would have been in frequent contact with the adoptive parents to discuss how the biological father could still exercise his rights to the child.

But Sandoval said he "didn't even know who the adoptive parents were."

After the debate, the adoptive father, Don Smit, said Sandoval was in contact with he and his wife in December 1998 and January 1999. In both instances, Smit said, Sandoval advised the couple not to file a document stating the biological father could not be located, as they were entitled to do on Nov. 27, 1998.

When the biological father was located in February, Smit said, Sandoval would not return any of the couple's calls.

"He may not have been our attorney, but since he represented Catholic Services, his client was that 9-month-old baby," Smit said. "The guy ran and ran and ran and we couldn't get him to return a phone call."