Moncrief booked on campaign charges

Monday, Aug. 23, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Janet Moncrief was formally processed through the Metro police booking system Thursday, another step toward ultimately bringing her to trial on felony charges of campaign law violations.

"She received summons from court indicating to her she needed to come down and be fingerprinted and have her photograph taken," Metro spokeswoman Carla Alston said.

Moncrief was indicted Aug. 5, and the charges were filed against her the next day. Her next appearance in court is to be Sept. 8 for an arraignment, at which time she can enter a plea.

Reached Friday, Moncrief repeated her assertion of innocence and when asked if she would plead not guilty said, "You could definitely assume that."

When people are charged with a crime, they can either be arrested, given a warrant requiring them to present themselves for arrest or given a summons to appear for processing, without an arrest being made.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen said the process is decided on a case-by-case basis.

"I had no indication that Janet Moncrief was a flight risk. We felt comfortable and agreed with her attorney that we would issue a summons in lieu of arrest," Hafen said.

Moncrief, a first-term council member, campaigned as a political outsider and defeated incumbent Michael McDonald in the June 2003 election.

She was indicted Aug. 5 on four counts of filing false campaign expense reports and one count of perjury.

The reports failed to include the value of "volunteer" work, a van loaned to the campaign and amounts spent for misleading campaign fliers.

The charges include allegations that Moncrief did not report the value of work that teens did for her campaign, the contributions or expenses of campaign consultant Tony Dane and Steve Miller, the in-kind contribution represented by use of a loaned van, and the cost of producing and distributing attack fliers. Because she signed the reports "under declaration of penalty of perjury," she also is being charged with perjury.