Editorial: Gibbons incident not over

Monday, Jan. 1, 2007 | 7 a.m.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, through a spokesman, said Wednesday that he is pleased that Clark County District Attorney David Roger decided not to file criminal battery charges against him resulting from allegations made Oct. 13 by a cocktail waitress.

But this does not mean that Gibbons can put this incident behind him. Roger is continuing an investigation into allegations by Chrissy Mazzeo that her decision to not file charges against Gibbons was the result of pressure.

It appeared Wednesday that Gibbons himself would not be a focus of this investigation. "Based upon the evidence known to us at this time, we do not believe Mr. Gibbons was directly or indirectly involved with this activity," Roger said.

On Thursday, however, after being questioned by Las Vegas Sun reporters Jeff German and Sam Skolnik, Roger conceded Gibbons could be involved. "There is a possibility that he (Gibbons) was involved in this activity. But it does not seem probable that he participated in these actions," Roger said.

Roger adopted his new tone after acknowledging that he did not have a full set of phone records from people who became involved in the incident following Mazzeo's allegations. The district attorney's office has now subpoenaed additional phone records, including those of Gibbons' campaign adviser Sig Rogich, a prominent Las Vegas public relations executive.

Before Mazzeo filed her complaint against Gibbons, she had been sharing a table with him, Rogich and others at McCormick & Schmick's restaurant at the Hughes Center. She alleged that afterward, when the two were alone outside the restaurant, Gibbons grabbed her arms, pushed her against a wall and tried to coerce her into having sex.

As detailed by German in a story Thursday, a 25-page Metro Police report documents that as Mazzeo and Gibbons told and retold their versions of what happened, gaping discrepancies on both of their parts emerged.

With so many questions still unanswered, we believe Roger is right to not have closed the book on this incident.