Case rests on this guy’s credibility

Jeff German and Steve Kanigher

Wednesday, April 5, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

Michael Galardi's testimony is considered the heart of the government's corruption case against two former Clark County commissioners.

How well Galardi holds up on the stand could very well determine whether federal prosecutors can persuade a jury to convict ex-Commissioners Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey of taking bribes from him.

Yet, as the former strip club owner takes the witness stand in federal court this week, he's carrying a large load of baggage.

Former federal prosecutor Charles Kelly, a criminal defense attorney who has been following the Las Vegas trial closely, said the use of Galardi as a witness should be creating "a great deal of anxiety" for the government.

"The jury is entitled to know what type of person they're being asked to trust," Kelly said. "If they built a case around a guy who lied about the extent of his influence, they could end up holding a wet paper bag with the bottom having fallen out."

Prosecutors have presented hours of court-approved wiretaps to support Galardi's testimony. And they have called witnesses, such as former County Commissioner Erin Kenny, who pleaded guilty to taking bribes from Galardi, to corroborate his accusations against Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey.

Galardi's testimony also stood up well enough to obtain federal corruption convictions last year in San Diego of his bagman, former Commissioner Lance Malone, and two San Diego councilmen - although a judge later tossed out the brunt of the case against one councilman.

In his opening statement to the jury in the Las Vegas case last month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Schiess did not vouch for Galardi's character. "Michael Galardi used Cheetahs (one of his clubs) to fund all of his desires, his wishes and his wants," he said.

Schiess told the jury that he was confident the government had enough evidence to prove that Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey betrayed the public's trust when they decided to help Galardi fulfill those needs.

But defense lawyers, in their opening statements, laid the foundation for an anticipated ferocious attack on Galardi's widespread claims of corruption, calling him a liar out to save his own skin.

"He lied and lied and lied to get one of the greatest deals in law enforcement history," Kincaid-Chauncey's lawyer, Richard Wright, told the jury. "He gave the government a wish list of what he could deliver for them."

Questions about Galardi's credibility stem from his initial interviews with FBI agents in 2003 when, while negotiating a deal for leniency, he offered up a long list of public officials he claimed to have provided with illicit cash and favors.

Many of those allegations, described in secret FBI reports obtained by the Sun, were not substantiated by agents. That lack of corroboration could provide an opportunity for the defense, which has sought the names from the government of everyone Galardi implicated.

Presumably, the defense wants to parade those officials before the jury, portraying them as people unfairly tainted by the government's star witness. Criminal defense attorneys following the trial, including former federal prosecutors, said they believe the tactic could greatly undermine Galardi's credibility.

Indeed, some of the public officials named by Galardi - and recently identified by the Sun - have already challenged his truthfulness.

The FBI reports also reveal that Galardi's earlier and later statements to investigators contain numerous inconsistencies, which defense lawyers plan to exploit on cross-examination.

This week the defense subpoenaed three elected officials named by Galardi in the FBI reports as potential witnesses who could rebut Galardi's claims about them.

Sources said District Judges Nancy Saitta and Donald Mosley and Las Vegas Municipal Judge Toy Gregory all received subpoenas.

Stan Hunterton, another former federal prosecutor following the corruption trial, said Galardi starts off on the witness stand with little credibility.

"In terms of the context of this case, who could you find that would say, 'I find Mike Galardi a believable person?' He's sleeping on the floor. It's pretty hard to roll out of bed."

Longtime defense lawyer John Momot, who has sparred with federal prosecutors over the years, said he would have a field day cross-examining Galardi.

"He's a defense attorney's dream," Momot said. "It's not whether you're going to show him as a liar. It's just how you're going to show him as a liar and in what sequence."

Although not everyone Galardi singled out in the FBI reports has been identified, it is clear that he talked about an array of elected officials, judges and law enforcement officers, sometimes lumping in the good with the bad, as he secretly negotiated his deal with the government.

Some of the officials Galardi named - including Herrera, Kincaid-Chauncey, Malone and Kenny - already were being investigated by the FBI for taking cash from Galardi. Kenny struck a deal and finished testifying for the government this week. Malone, who became a lobbyist for Galardi after he left the commission, is to stand trial in August.

Galardi also talked about others linked to him, including then-Las Vegas Councilmen Michael McDonald and Michael Mack. They were accused of ethical missteps during their terms in office, although they have not been charged in the criminal investigation.

But the names of other officials seemed to come out of nowhere, including that of veteran Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Johnson, who was overseeing the Galardi investigation. An internal Justice Department review did not substantiate Galardi's claims that Johnson received free drinks and lap dances at Cheetahs. But Johnson was removed as the lead prosecutor in the case.

Johnson wound up in the unusual position last year of testifying for the defense in the San Diego corruption case, rebutting Galardi's claims.

The Justice Department also had to look into allegations that several FBI agents were among those who supposedly received favors from Galardi. There has been no word on the outcome of those internal inquiries. But FBI agents privately assured Sheriff Bill Young that they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing involving any of the police officers Galardi named.

Kelly says the unproved accusations about Johnson sidetracked the corruption investigation in Las Vegas and prompted the government to re-evaluate Galardi's claims.

"They chose not to take it to the next level," Kelly said.

That, he added, left the allegations about many officials Galardi named hanging out there.

Hunterton predicted that most of the officials Galardi discussed with FBI agents are likely to end up in the clear.

"If they had anything on those people, we probably would have heard something by now," he said. "Galardi told them in his initial debriefings a lot of things he thought or heard, but probably 95 percent of it hasn't turned out to be verifiable.

Galardi appears to have been overly boastful about his generosity to several of the people he talked about in the FBI reports.

Galardi told the FBI that, with the assistance of his former lawyer, Peter S. Christiansen, he provided $20,000 in cash and sexual favors to District Attorney David Roger, identified as "public official #1" in the reports. But in those same reports, "Galardi advised that public official #1 has not helped him with anything."

And the FBI reported that Christiansen denied giving Roger the $20,000. Roger told the Sun that whatever Galardi said about him simply "didn't happen." The first-term district attorney said he hasn't even set foot inside any of Galardi's former strip clubs.

Roger's 2002 campaign finance reports show that he received $10,000 in contributions from Galardi during his 2002 race for district attorney. But Roger returned the donations, along with those he took from other topless clubs, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The district attorney's office at the time had helped write a tougher lap dance ordinance for the County Commission.

Last year, Roger said, he was prepared to rebut Galardi's claims if called to testify at the corruption trial in San Diego.

Las Vegas attorney Dominic Gentile, who was defending Malone in San Diego, had subpoenaed Roger as a defense witness. But the presiding judge refused to allow Roger and other Las Vegas officials to take the witness stand, saying their testimony wasn't relevant to the San Diego charges.

In his interviews with FBI agents, Galardi also made claims about County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, identified in the FBI reports as "public official #4."

Initially, he told the FBI that he had given public official #4 more than six figures in cash, but later retracted that and said he had not given the official any money directly.

In 2002, when Galardi's wheeling and dealing was at its zenith and was secretly being watched by the FBI, Atkinson Gates was regarded as one of his biggest political adversaries.

She was the author of a county ordinance that placed tight restrictions on lap dancing and banned strippers under 21 from performing at clubs in the county.

Galardi told the FBI that Atkinson Gates once solicited cash from him during a tour of his posh Jaguars club.

"While viewing the facility," an FBI report said, "public official #4 commented about the upscale establishment and also stated that $100,000 would make any problems go away.

"Galardi wanted to pay public official #4 the $100,000 but Malone intervened and advised that in reality, public official #4 was not in favor of Galardi and his businesses."

In an interview with the Sun, Atkinson Gates denied Galardi's claims. "He's a liar," she said. "My vote wasn't for sale, and it never will be for sale. The guy obviously was trying to save himself, so he said anything that he thought people wanted to hear to lighten his sentence."

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former criminal defense lawyer who has known Galardi's father, Jack Galardi, for years, is mentioned in the FBI reports as being sympathetic to topless clubs and Michael Galardi's business interests.

In 2002, while the county was debating whether to get tougher on the clubs, Goodman, described as "public official #5" in the FBI reports, was advocating lax regulations for topless dancing.

The FBI quoted Galardi as saying that during the establishment and construction of Jaguars, he met at City Hall with McDonald and public official #5. Goodman openly advocated the annexation of Jaguars from the county to the city, as Galardi wanted.

On Oct. 28, 2002, Goodman wrote a letter to Herrera, then chairman of the County Commission, urging the county to work with Jaguars and the city.

"I have been told that many of the activities that Jaguars wishes that its dancers and patrons could engage in are not permitted under the Clark County code," Goodman wrote. "These activities, however, are permitted under the Las Vegas city code.

"I'm writing to see if the Clark County Commission would be willing to participate in a cooperative enterprise between the owners of Jaguars and the city of Las Vegas."

The annexation never occurred.

Galardi also told the FBI that his dealings with Goodman were limited, but that Galardi and his father each had given public official #5 $10,000 in cash sometime before his first run for mayor.

Public official #5 was described as a good friend of Galardi and his father, and the younger Galardi made a point of telling the FBI that the official "did not provide legal work" for him.

Campaign records show that Goodman, who was independently wealthy before running for office, received a $500 contribution from Galardi Enterprises, a Galardi family company, in 1999. During his 2003 re-election campaign, records show, Goodman received $10,000 in contributions from Michael Galardi.

Goodman said he didn't want to comment on Galardi's allegations without having a chance to see the FBI reports.

But one person wasn't shy about talking about Galardi. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller, who presided over the San Diego corruption case, wrote in a Nov. 10 order that he was tossing out seven of the nine charges against former San Diego Councilman Michael Zucchet. Miller cited a lack of evidence to support Galardi's surprise testimony during the trial about a $10,000 cash payment he allegedly instructed Malone to give to the councilman in April 2003.

"The undisputed evidence in this case reveals Galardi made no mention of the $10,000 payment in his interviews with the government until 2005," Miller wrote.

"Further, Galardi's credibility was seriously compromised by the benefits he received under his written plea agreement with the government and the extent to which his testimony could increase favorable treatment.

According to a copy of the 20-page plea agreement, filed in federal court in Las Vegas on Oct. 24, 2003, prosecutors said they would seek leniency for Galardi at his sentencing if he ended up providing "substantial assistance" in the corruption investigation.

The agreement said the government had yet to determine whether the information Galardi had provided met that substantial assistance standard.

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