Testify for a friend, jeopardize a career

By Jeff German

Saturday, July 19, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Dennis Nolan rolled the dice last week at the Regional Justice Center — and crapped out.

The two-term state senator’s decision to testify as a character witness for a longtime friend standing trial on charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl isn’t going to play well in Nolan’s political future.

It took a jury about 2 1/2 hours last week to convict Nolan’s friend, 26-year-old Gordon Joseph Lawes, following a weeklong trial. The jury returned its verdict about 12:30 a.m. July 12.

Lawes, who is in custody under a $500,000 bond, faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years on each of two sexual assault counts. At his Sept. 16 sentencing, a previous conviction for conspiracy to commit burglary, a gross misdemeanor, is likely to surface.

Nolan, a law-and-order Republican, can count on all of this coming up on the campaign trail if he chooses to run for reelection in 2010.

The assaulted girl’s father, Timothy Andersen, said he was “disgusted” by Nolan’s testimony.

“The fact that he testified on the record for someone of that kind of character is astounding to me,” Andersen said from Flagstaff, Ariz., where he is a real estate broker. “I think there’s something very inappropriate about his relationship with Lawes.”

In Andersen’s mind, Lawes has “no character of a positive nature at all.”

Nolan understands he has left himself vulnerable to political attacks. Just before he took the witness stand last week, Nolan said a swift guilty verdict would be the worst possible outcome.

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Just when it looked as if the Bank of China racketeering trial was destined to become one of the dullest cases ever in federal court, things have started to pick up.

Even jurors sifting through the mass of evidence in the alleged $400 million embezzlement at the state-run bank appeared more alert Friday, as defense attorneys on cross-examination grilled a local Chinese official who dramatically changed his testimony to help the U.S. government’s case.

The official admitted he’d had a couple of overseas telephone calls with Chinese police just before taking the witness stand in Las Vegas, giving credence to the defense theory that the Chinese government is pulling strings behind the scenes to help Justice Department prosecutors make their case.

Attorneys for two former branch managers and two other defendants contend the Chinese government, in its zeal to improve diplomatic relations with the United States, has altered documents and intimidated Chinese witnesses into tailoring their testimony to fit the American prosecution.

•••

Chief Justice Mark Gibbons has found a convenient opportunity to generate publicity for himself in an election year.

With the help of Bill Gang, the Nevada Supreme Court’s seasoned public information officer, Gibbons has been touting the new transparent judicial selection process.

The Commission on Judicial Selection, of which Gibbons is chairman, will deliberate in public Tuesday for the first time when it meets to narrow the field of eight candidates seeking to replace retiring Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle.

Under a commission rule change, the public will be able to participate in the process, which will take place at the Supreme Court on the 17th floor of the Regional Justice Center.

Gibbons, a former district judge, is making himself available Monday for media interviews to discuss the open process in a savvy move aimed at putting him at the forefront of a subject dear to the public.

It’s probably just a coincidence that Gibbons happens to be running for a second term and faces an experienced opponent.

He also shares the last name of the governor, who’s not very popular right now.

The chief justice isn’t related to the state’s troubled chief executive, but it can’t be easy for anyone named Gibbons to be on the ballot this year.

“If I were him, I’d be worried about that,” one well-known political strategist said.

Jeff German is the Sun’s senior investigative reporter.