Local philanthropists step in to fill government void

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

A local developer announced Tuesday he will step in to save a program that has provided free legal counsel to thousands of domestic violence victims.

The program, which is run by the nonprofit Clark County Legal Services, abruptly lost its federal funding in October.

Women who use it have complicated legal needs and often have nowhere else to turn, said Barbara Buckley, a Democratic assemblywoman who also heads Clark County Legal Services.

Attorneys had stopped taking cases and were planning to stop representing more than 50 active clients when Buckley got a call from local philanthropists John Ritter and Hilary Westrom.

The couple established the Ritter Charitable Trust in 2002 to focus largely on the needs of children and family issues. On Tuesday, the foundation cut a check for $175,000, the first installment in the couple's donation.

"I would call on others in our community who have prospered to do the same thing," Westrom said Tuesday.

News of the donation comforted women such as Maria Ramirez, who said she didn't know where to go when her abusive ex-boyfriend sought custody of their three children.

The program helped 1,003 women like Ramirez in 2003, up from 608 in 2001.

Ramirez said her ex-boyfriend had kidnapped and raped her but was let out of jail when he said he didn't understand court proceedings because he speaks Spanish. Soon after he was released from jail, he tried to get custody of their three children, she said.

Veronica Thronson, an attorney with the program, took on Ramirez's case. Now her ex-boyfriend is back in jail and her children are safe, said the 30-year-old Ramirez, who is remarried and works as a casino cocktail waitress.

"I can say I'm done because they helped me already," Ramirez said. "But somebody else is behind me. Every day it's more victims."

Ritter, who described himself as "just an old hippie," said he was angered when he read that the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women had 237 requests for funds totaling $105 million throughout the nation but would give just $39.3 million in grants.

That means the government is spending less on domestic violence programs than it does in a day in Iraq, Ritter said.

The trust has an annual giving budget of $500,000 "and growing," Ritter said. Ritter is CEO of Focus Property Group, which, according to a press release, has a portfolio of about $1 billion in vacant land in Las Vegas and around the Southwest.

Buckley said she had appealed to Nevada's congressional delegation for help but was worried money wouldn't come on time. The program is already overloaded and could use two additional attorneys, she said.

"I've never had to face anything like this before, ever," she said. "We've never had a foundation just pull the rug out from underneath us."

A Justice Department spokesman said in October that the state's application to renew its grant was not competitive with those from other states that received funding.