worker safety:

Setting record straight on Elliott case

Gibbons’ office says it wrongly attributed ‘vindication’ claim

Associated Press file

Gov. Jim Gibbons, center, answers a reporter’s question in his office June 6, 2007, in Carson City. With him at the table is Mendy Elliott, then-director of the Business and Industry Department, who was the subject of investigations into her role in a workplace safety case. She is now Gibbons’ deputy chief of staff.

By Alexandra Berzon (contact)

Friday, Dec. 26, 2008 | 2 a.m.

State clears Elliott in Orleans probe (12-18-2008)
The latest on Gibbons’ office reorganization (6-27-2008)
Orleans case sparks investigation (4-25-2008)

Gov. Jim Gibbons’ office says it erred when it issued a news release last week stating that an investigation by the attorney general had vindicated a top political appointee in her role in a workplace safety case.

The claim of vindication should have been attributed to an attorney for the political appointee, Mendy Elliott, who is Gibbons’ deputy chief of staff, the governor’s office said in a news release this week. The attorney general’s office had cleared Elliott of breaching public corruption statutes, but never said she had been vindicated.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto had ordered an investigation into Elliott’s involvement in a case against Boyd Gaming, owner of the Orleans, where a double fatal accident occurred in 2007.

Elliott, then director of the Business and Industry Department, called a meeting in her office between Boyd representatives and the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration, whose investigators had cited Boyd for willful violations that led to the deaths.

At a later meeting, the violations were reduced in an unusual settlement deal.

Last week, the attorney general’s office released a memo to the Las Vegas Sun stating Chief Deputy Attorney Conrad Hafen had determined, “There does not appear to be sufficient evidence to file criminal charges relating to the misconduct of a public officer.”

That was based primarily on testimony from Business and Industry attorney John Wiles, who told investigators it was his decision — not Elliott’s — to change the citations.

Daniel Burns, a spokesman for the governor, said in a news release last week that the attorney general’s investigation was prompted by a U.S. Labor Department probe and said, “The Nevada attorney general’s office disagreed with the federal report, citing in a memo that the investigation ‘clearly vindicates you (Elliott).’ ”

In fact, the attorney general’s inspection began well before the federal agency issued its reports this fall, and it was Elliott’s attorney, not the attorney general’s office, who interpreted the memo to declare Elliott had been “vindicated.”

Burns said it was a simple mistake.

He had received an e-mail from Elliott’s attorney and mistakenly referred to him as the attorney general in the news release he sent out last week.

“My problem is I was working too fast, and I shouldn’t have been working so fast,” Burns said.

Discussion: 6 comments so far…

By SafetyNow

12/26/08 at 6:52 p.m.

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TIME FOR AN APOLOGY
And there it is... I knew the moment I saw it that last weeks article which came out the day after the announcement of the Boyd lawsuit was nothing more than a smokescreen with the intended purpose of first causing the public to lose interest in the lawsuit (which by the way IS going to make history no matter what the outcome) and secondly as part of Boyd Gaming's defense during the lawsuit. However I feel very strongly that I must APOLOGIZE to the Attorney Generals office for the negative comments I posted following the release of last weeks story. I pride myself on being able to read between the lines yet somehow in the emotion of it all I missed that the statement was issued by the Governors office and not yours. And it was wrong of me to comment as I did. And for that I apologize profusely.

Mary Vivenzi
United Support & Memorial
For Workplace Fatalities
Email ~ Mvivenzi@usmwf.org
web site ~ http://www.usmwf.org
Blog ~ http://weeklytoll.blogspot.com/
Transforming tragedy into prevention
"One with a voice that does not protest an injustice
is an accomplice to it."
By skisailmtb40

12/26/08 at 7:37 p.m.

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Leave it to the Sun and its biases to "Set the Record Straight" by skewing it to fit their own liberal pro-Buckley/Reid agenda. Elliott was cleared. It was state multiple times on the AG's official report. (The same AG invesgitator who you LOVE for indicting Krolicki.) Look. People died. That's serious. You and your paper try to make it look like a Gibbons staffer had something to do with it when you know she didn't, yet you print you slanted BS anyway. Go away Las Vegas Sun. Hopefully the ad dollars you suck off the RJ will spell your demise.
By SafetyNow

12/26/08 at 8:09 p.m.

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A "simple mistake" ???
Oh please! How stupid do you think we are?
a "Poor Gamble" is what it was.

So let me be the first to THANK the governors office for issuing what they now allege was a statement of "ERROR". I agree whole heatedly. An error it was! Giving the suns readers (whom are not by any means unintelligent individuals.) an undeniable opportunity to witness the lengths that the governors office will go to as their options of being able to defend their actions run low. It must be very stressful and frustrating for them. Still it would seem to me that with all the conniving that takes place that office, They would have chosen to take advantage of someone who cared less about their journalism to "USE" to do their dirty work. I mean come on now everyone knows that Alexandra is incapable of poor or incompetent journalism. But without doubt the very best thing about this unsuccessful attempt to throw the Attorney Generals Office/reputation under the bus is... The governors office has "RESTORED HOPE" and given me all the reason I need to believe in the possibility that when the Attorney Generals Office completes their investigation their decision will likely be based on the "FACT"
And that is all that matters.

GREAT JOB ALEXANDRA! YOU REALLY WRITE A GREAT PIECE!
Now that's what I call...
AWARD WINNING JOURNALISM
Mary
By letjusticeprevail

12/26/08 at 8:14 p.m.

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skisailmtb40: First off if you don't like the Sun paper then why do you read it and always stick your nose and one cent into business you know nothing about? You're surely one of the gov's few supporters. Elliott inserted herself into this case because someone called her to do so. You don't think she was sitting in her office, heard about the deaths and thought she should become involved do you? My bet is on a relative of the Boyds who has political connections who called and told her to help them make the whole deal go away. It's amazing that one of Elliott's minions would be the one to make "a mistake" by thinking a normal attorney is the AG.
You're living in a dream if you think that office wasn't influenced. And she gets rewarded for her efforts by getting a promotion. Go figure. Pond scum the lot of them.
By letjusticeprevail

12/26/08 at 8:24 p.m.

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Thanks Mary for your support and also Alexandra for a great article as usual. We know you are reporting facts, but the guilty parties don't see it that way.