Hearing scheduled in Malone case

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005 | 9:46 a.m.

Former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone's motion to dismiss a San Diego corruption case because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct is scheduled to be heard March 7 by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller.

The motion, filed last week in federal court in San Diego, claims that federal authorities engineered a criminal enterprise to entrap Malone and two San Diego city councilmen.

Malone is facing federal political corruption charges in both San Diego and Las Vegas in two seperate cases. In both cases Malone is charged with acting as a middleman for former strip club owner Michael Galardi to trade money and gifts for political influence.

The motion in the San Diego case alleges that federal and local investigators introduced the idea of bribing a police officer in San Diego, and that Malone had no knowledge of the bribery while acting as a lobbyist for Galardi.

The motion goes on to allege that an investigator, Scott Scarborough, working for Galardi, contacted Malone last year after the indictments in the cases had been handed down, in an attempt to coerce Malone to change his plea in San Diego from guilty to not guilty.

Malone's attorney, Dominic Gentile, met with Scarborough on April 14, 2004, in Las Vegas for less than 30 minutes and was told that federal prosecutors in San Diego had pressured Galardi to try to get Malone to change his plea, according to a declaration filed with the motion by Gentile.

Gentile has asked for an evidentiary hearing regarding possible prosecutorial misconduct. The motion does not specifically accuse a government prosecutor of misconduct, and instead asks for a hearing to determine if Scarborough was telling the truth.

Galardi has pleaded guilty in both the San Diego case and the Las Vegas case. The San Diego case is scheduled to go to trial on May 3, while the Las Vegas case is scheduled for March 8, although that date will almost surely be continued because of the volume of the evidence in the case, including more than 100,000 conversations recorded through FBI wire-taps.

In the Las Vegas case, County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and former Commissioner Dario Herrera have also been charged with taking bribes and using their influence to benefit Galardi's clubs.

Former County Commissioner Erin Kenny was also charged in the case, but like Galardi she has pleaded guilty and has agreed to cooperate with the government's prosecution of Malone, Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey.