City worker arrested in probe of illegal use of jail inmates

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Dec. 16, 2004 | 10:57 a.m.

Two North Las Vegas city employees were arrested Tuesday night for having detention center inmates clean buildings for a friend's janitorial business, police said.

Glenn McKinnon, 42, and Rene Moran, 31, janitors for the city, are each charged with theft by a public officer and theft in connection with the operation.

Hilda Flores, 24, owner of Durango Janitorial Services, was charged with theft.

McKinnon and Moran are accused of having work crews from the North Las Vegas Detention Center clean four city buildings for which Flores had contracts for janitorial services, Officer Sean Walker, police spokesman, said.

McKinnon and Moran did not have permission to have the work crews clean the buildings, he said.

Police believe McKinnon and Flores had a relationship, but the nature of it is not clear.

The scheme had apparently been going on since September, when Flores' contract with the city began, Walker said, and police began investigating in November.

Walker refused to say how much the contracts are worth because, he said, the city plans to put them up for bid.

This case marked the second time in a week that public employees were arrested for theft.

Metro Police arrested 37-year-old Stephanie Stevenson, a clerk with the Las Vegas Municipal Court, on Dec. 9 on charges of theft, burglary and impersonating another.

Police said she stole the identity of a woman to steal merchandise from Dillard's using a fake Clark County health card allegedly provided by her friend, Susan Donegan, 42. Donegan worked at the health district and Dillard's. Police arrested her for theft.

Stevenson and Donegan are both on unpaid leave from their government jobs pending the outcome of the criminal investigations.