Judge rejects DeStefano appeal to get on ballot

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.

Ousted Board of Regents District 13 candidate Mark DeStefano will remain off the ballot, a district judge ruled this morning.

District Judge Lee Gates rejected DeStefano's motion to get onto the Nov. 2 ballot pending an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Gates ruled that DeStefano was ineligible for the post on the day of the primary because he did not actually live in the district he was running in. Although DeStefano won the primary, Gates said Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax rightfully excluded DeStefano from the general election based on the court order.

Putting DeStefano back on the ballot now would cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars, Gates noted. "I don't think the county should spend that kind of money on a candidate that is ineligible," Gates said.

DeStefano and his attorney, Harold Gewerter, said they will take the case to the Nevada Supreme Court. They alleged that Gates did not have jurisdiction to decide the case and the plaintiffs had filed the complaint beyond the statute's limitations.

"The court should not decide elections," DeStefano said.

DeStefano and Gewerter also said they believed that DeStefano had a right to designate as his residence either his cabin in Lee Canyon in District 13 or his five-bedroom home in the Queensridge development in District 7.

DeStefano had testified that he has never actually slept in the cabin he purchased in March 2004 and that he sleeps in his home in Queensridge. Gates ruled that because DeStefano does not actually live in the cabin, he did not meet the residency requirements under Nevada law.

Three regent candidates, James Dean Leavitt, Matthew Berkus and Jim Germain, filed the complaint against DeStefano in August.

Leavitt placed second in the primary and is facing third runner-up Gloria Sturman in the general election. Neither candidate was in the courtroom this morning.