Columnist Jeff German: FBI probe of clubs full of leaks

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 | 10:51 a.m.

Where's Lance Malone? And what is his status in the FBI's investigation into possible political corruption within the topless nightclub industry?

As of Monday, we still didn't have the answers to those questions, but there has been much speculation in the media.

We've heard that Malone, a former county commissioner who turned lobbyist for strip club operators Michael and Jack Galardi, is a target of the investigation. We've also heard that he's cooperating with the FBI. Both could be true, or neither, but as of Monday, nobody in the media could say for sure because the people in the know, Malone and the FBI, aren't talking.

The uncertainty over Malone's status illustrates how little we know about this investigation.

The only thing we know for sure is that City Councilman Michael McDonald, County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and former County Commissioners Dario Herrera and Erin Kenny are listed on search warrants FBI agents executed last Wednesday at Cheetahs and Jaguars, which are owned by the Galardis.

We suspect that this is a political corruption investigation because the search warrants gave FBI agents permission to look for records of payments to the politicians.

But overall few hard facts about this probe have surfaced, though there have been plenty of leaks coming from law enforcement authorities.

Some of the leaks, according to Las Vegas FBI spokesman Daron Borst, have been misleading.

"Not everything being put out is accurate," Borst said Monday. "This isn't the way we like to see things played."

With so little official information coming out of this case, reporters, who are under competitive pressure to dig up as much as they can on the story, are resorting to using unattributed sources, and some of them are being loose with the facts, Borst said.

But Borst won't say which leaks have been bad, because Justice Department guidelines prohibit him from publicly discussing a criminal investigation outside of a courtroom.

Borst, however, took the unusual step Monday of appealing to his law enforcement colleagues to stop leaking information. He said he feared it was having a detrimental effect on both the investigation and the reputations of the politicians. Not everyone named in the search warrant, it seems, is a target, but everyone is being dirtied up.

It's gotten to the point where FBI agents privately are blaming Metro Police for putting out bad information, and Metro Police are blaming the FBI.

While the blame game is being played, reputations of elected officials are hanging in the balance.

The FBI, for example, is letting McDonald, who faces a re-election bid in two weeks, twist slowly in the wind.

McDonald held a news conference Monday and once more insisted that he's not a target. But he offered no proof to reporters other than to call his lawyer who, when called, won't talk.

FBI agents, McDonald said, instructed him not to discuss his interview with them last week.

And so the media speculation continues.