Deal will let Boggs avoid trial, probably jail

By Jeff German

Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs has agreed to a plea deal that will allow her to avoid being tried on felony charges.

Boggs, who had been a Las Vegas City Councilwoman and was considered a rising star for the Republican Party, is set to accept a conviction of filing a false declaration of candidacy, District Attorney David Roger confirmed Monday.

“This is one of the first times that someone has been criminally prosecuted for filing a false declaration of candidacy,” Roger said. “It shows that no one is above the law.”

The false filing charge is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in the Clark County Detention Center and a fine of up to $2,000. But because she doesn’t have a criminal history, Boggs is likely to be sentenced to probation.

As part of the deal, Roger said, prosecutors have agreed to make no recommendation regarding punishment when Boggs is sentenced.

Boggs’ lawyer, Gabriel Grasso, told prosecutors last week she was taking the plea deal, Roger said. She could enter her plea before District Judge Donald Mosley as early as next Tuesday.

That would cancel her trial, slated for Jan. 26, on felony charges of perjury and filing a false campaign report. The two felony charges are punishable by up to four years and five years, respectively, in prison.

Prosecutors allege that Boggs falsely claimed on campaign documents that she lived in a house in her district when she actually lived outside the district.

Boggs was charged in a four-count criminal indictment in August 2007, but in February Mosley dismissed two charges that accused her of misrepresenting payments to her children’s nanny on her campaign reports.

The investigation into whether Boggs lived in her district was aided by a private detective hired by two influential labor organizations, the Culinary Union and the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, which worked to defeat Boggs. For six weeks, the private detective — David Groover, a former Metro cop, videotaped Boggs taking out the trash and coming and going daily at her house outside the district.

Susan Brager defeated her for the county position, and Boggs co-founded a Christian ministry called Faithworks.

At a court hearing in May, Grasso said the criminal investigation had dramatically changed Boggs’ life. Though she hosted an Internet radio show once a week tied to Faithworks, she essentially was unemployed, he said.

Neither Grasso nor Boggs could be reached for comment Monday.

The Las Vegas telephone number listed on the Faithworks Web site is no longer in service, and the latest news posting on the site is from August 2007.