Editorial: What will the tapes show?

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons says the release of the parking-garage videotapes will clear him, but he's getting way ahead of himself.

Gibbons' camp claims the tapes will show that nothing happened on Oct. 13, the night Chrissy Mazzeo says the congressman accosted her inside a parking garage at Hughes Center. We don't see how the tapes can definitively show anything.

To us the tapes epitomize the way this whole incident has been handled. Instead of adding clarity, the tapes only further muddle the situation.

First, Metro Police say they were originally told by an employee of the parking garage that the cameras weren't working on Oct. 13. Yet nearly two weeks later the company that owns and manages Hughes Center, Crescent Real Estate Equities, turned videotapes over to the police.

Security experts have told the Sun that without a clear understanding of where those tapes were and who had control of them - in court that's called the chain of custody, a key to proving the integrity of evidence - it's tough to put any credence into what's on them because they could, for all we know, be fake. It's also possible that the tapes could be of no help to police - the recordings may have missed the areas of the garage where and when the incident allegedly occurred.

While police say it would take them several days to finish reviewing the tapes, District Judge Doug Herndon on Tuesday made a rare ruling, ordering police to make copies of the tapes - possible evidence - and release them while the investigation is ongoing. (Herndon cited the public's right to know as the reason for ordering the tapes' release, but oddly, he left the public out in his ruling, ordering the police to make copies of the tapes for the district attorney's office and Gibbons' and Mazzeo's attorneys. So now the attorneys in this politically charged case control what the public sees of the tapes.)

No matter what the tapes show, their release further shows the coziness of the political players in this case, which just adds more skepticism to the whole situation.

Herndon was appointed to the bench by Gov. Kenny Guinn in 2005. Among those who called the governor's office to support Herndon's appointment, as the Sun reported Wednesday, was Republican power broker and Gibbons' adviser Sig Rogich.

Rogich is pervasive in political circles. He lobbied for Crescent, the company with the videotapes, and in the past has supported Sheriff Bill Young.

Young, a Republican, endorsed Gibbons and has been criticized for minimizing the situation after he originally called the whole incident a "misunderstanding." The sheriff was defended recently in a defamation case by high-profile attorney Don Campbell.

That's the same Don Campbell who is working for Gibbons and leading the attack on Mazzeo.

So will the videos provide clarity?

We're not counting on it. If anything, the release of the mysterious surveillance tapes just adds more questions to what actually happened Friday the 13th.