Suit alleges Mosley violated rights of defendants

Jace Radke

Monday, Oct. 20, 2003 | 10:59 a.m.

A federal lawsuit filed against District Judge Donald Mosley alleges that he has violated hundreds of defendants' civil rights.

The class-action lawsuit focuses on the case of Jeanette Faye Sadoski, who alleges that Mosley violated her civil rights by toughening her sentence and exposing her to double jeopardy.

The suit calls for Mosley to review all of his criminal cases to determine if he illegally resentenced any defendants.

"There are potentially a couple hundred people out there who could have been illegally sentenced," said Clark Garen, Sadoski's attorney. "When he's not trying people for the same offense over and over, he is handing out sentences that are not supported by any part of Nevada law."

Sadoski alleges that Mosley changed her sentence for theft from a misdemeanor to a felony after another charge came to light. Nevada law specifically allows a judge to reduce sentences but does not address lengthening them.

Mosley, who has served on the bench for 23 years, is out of town until midweek and can't be reached for comment, according to a clerk in his office.

The suit calls for Mosley to be prohibited from resentencing defendants without an order from a federal judge, and asks that Mosley inform any defendants that he may have illegally resentenced that they can sue.

Other defendants in the suit, which was filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court, include former District Attorney Stewart Bell, District Attorney David Roger and Nevada Department of Corrections Director Jackie Crawford.

Roger reached this morning at his office, said he had not yet seen the suit, and had no comment on it.

The suit stems from a June 2000 guilty plea by Sadoski to a $6,000 theft from a Las Vegas store where she worked, Garen said.

Mosley originally gave Sadoski a suspended sentence of one year for the gross misdemeanor. But between the time that Sadoski gave her plea and the time she was sentenced she was arrested on a drug trafficking charge, according to documents filed by the District Attorney's office.

Mosley found out about the drug charge after he had sentenced Sadoski. That prompted him to resentence her to 32 months in prison with minimum parole eligibility of 12 months. In July 2002 Sadoski was paroled on the drug charge, but remained under house arrest on the theft charge, which ran concurrent to the drug charge.

In June the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the resentencing, and in July Mosley reinstated the original sentence causing Sadoski to be released.

The suit states that Sadoski, "and the other members of her class have sustained damages for illegal incarceration," but an exact damage amount has not been determined.

"We don't know what that amount is," Garen said. "What is the price of someone's freedom?"

The suit does ask a federal judge to order Mosley, Bell, Roger and Crawford to pay $750,000 in attorney's fees as well as $32,322, the cost incurred by Sadoski during her house arrest, for such things as the court-mandated monitoring device and her higher utility bills.