Jones takes stand in probe of Minxx club shooting in ’07

By Jeff German (contact)

Thursday, July 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It turns out that suspended NFL player Adam “Don’t Call Me Pacman” Jones was indeed a star witness for the grand jury probe into the February 2007 shooting at the Minxx strip club.

As part of the plea deal that reduced the cornerback’s charges, Jones agreed to help authorities identify the shooter. He testified before the grand jury July 10.

“He has kept up his end of the bargain,” Jones’ Las Vegas attorney, Robert Langford, said Wednesday.

The alleged gunman and chief target of the grand jury, 29-year-old Arvin Edwards, is expected in Las Vegas shortly. Prosecutors have a warrant to extradite Edwards from Washington state, where he’s being held on attempted murder and battery charges.

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District Attorney David Roger is stepping up the criminal investigation stemming from the hepatitis outbreak at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.

Roger confirmed Wednesday that his office has begun using a county grand jury in the massive probe.

“We’re using it as an investigative tool,” Roger said.

Prosecutors, sources said, began calling witnesses before the panel last week.

The technique is not uncommon in complex criminal cases. By putting witnesses under oath, investigators can lock in testimony and provide additional focus to their efforts to zero in on criminal charges.

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The Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission has given a disgraced judicial figure a big financial break.

The secretive state panel last week quietly dropped its four-year effort to collect a $10,000 fine from Peter LaPorta, a former part-time judge in Henderson Municipal Court and Henderson Justice Court.

In a two-page order, the commission said it was no longer “cost effective” to seek a judgment in District Court against LaPorta, who previously was disbarred and prohibited from being a judge again.

The fine stems from a 2004 disciplinary action, spurred in part by complaints from Lydia Harrison, who alleged that LaPorta, while her lawyer, defrauded her and her son Mark out of $24,000. LaPorta told Harrison he was going to help her get her granddaughter back from Mexico, where she had been taken by her mother and remains today.

Although the Harrisons have gotten all but about $4,000 of their money back through restitution and a special Nevada State Bar fund set up to help clients victimized by unscrupulous lawyers, they are not happy that the Judicial Discipline Commission has stopped pursing the $10,000 judgment against LaPorta.

Lydia Harrison describes her ordeal with LaPorta as a “hurtful experience” that has weighed on her emotionally.

LaPorta, who was reported to be driving a taxi a couple of years ago, snubbed the disciplinary process every step of the way, failing to show up for a half-dozen commission hearings. He tried to get out of paying the $10,000 fine, which is supposed to go to the Clark County Law Library, by agreeing to do 240 hours of community service work there. But he never spent a minute at the library.

LaPorta declined to comment.

David Sarnowski, the commission’s departing executive director, defended the decision to abandon the lawsuit against LaPorta.

“The commission’s purpose isn’t to collect debts,” said Sarnowski, who’s leaving next month to work for a private contractor advising the courts in Iraq. “There comes a time when the commission has to spend its money on things that have a higher priority.”

That priority, Sarnowski said, is devoting the panel’s limited resources to upcoming disciplinary proceedings against two of Clark County’s elected judges, District Court’s Elizabeth Halverson and Family Court’s Nicholas Del Vecchio.

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There’s a sad ending to the heroic efforts at the Regional Justice Center on July 8 to save the life of 72-year-old Rudolph Pristow, who suffered a heart attack and collapsed in the arms of a deputy marshal.

His son Michael reports that the elder Pristow died Saturday at Valley Hospital after being taken off a respirator.

“Most of the officers here have taken it pretty hard,” said Lt. George Glasper, who supervises the marshals. “They gave it their very best effort and were hoping he would survive.”