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Gag Order on Vegas Terror Threat Lifted

by J.M. KALIL

LAS VEGAS -- Released from a judge's gag order, the Justice Department on Tuesday night vigorously rebutted explosive claims that Las Vegas authorities bungled a possible terror threat to local casinos.

Detroit Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, who is on leave from the department during an internal probe, has alleged Las Vegas police, public officials and casinos were more worried about a terror scare's effect on tourism than public safety.

"These allegations were coming from a disgruntled employee," Special Agent Dave Nanz, a spokesman for the Las Vegas field office of the FBI, said Tuesday evening, about six hours after the lifting of a Detroit gag order. "We now can and will set the record straight."

One of Convertino's chief allegations is that Detroit FBI agent Paul George was spurned by Las Vegas authorities and casinos when he flew here last year to share with them video surveillance footage of the Strip seized from a Detroit terror cell.

A Justice Department memo indicated that, when George arrived to speak with Las Vegas authorities, "No one showed up except for two Metro officers."

"The information, unfortunately, was not taken as seriously as we believed it to have been," Convertino told The Associated Press.

"The reason that he (the FBI agent) was given for the low turnout was because of liability. That if (casinos) heard this information, they would have to act on it. It was extraordinarily unacceptable and absolutely outrageous."

But Nanz said casino officials and law enforcers declined George's invitation because they already had seen the footage.

Local FBI agents had shared the footage with Las Vegas police and security chiefs at the hotels depicted in the video some six months earlier, when the Detroit footage was first decoded by the government

"Talk that everyone gave him the cold shoulder, that's completely inaccurate," Nanz said. "There was no relevant party here that needed to see the tapes. Everyone had already seen it months before."

In fact, the chief purpose of George's trip to Las Vegas the month before a major terror trial was wholly mischaracterized, Nanz said.

"He wasn't coming here to warn authorities or to show videotapes," Nanz said. "His primary purpose for coming here rather was to prepare for his testimony in Detroit. He wanted to go around the Strip and view various buildings depicted in the videotape."

Contradicting a contention made in one of the internal Justice Department memos obtained by the AP, Nanz said more than two police officers met with George during his visit.

"(George) came to the local FBI office and talked to two senior FBI agents, who gave him full cooperation," Nanz said. "He also met with the two Metro officers on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a sergeant and a detective. And then his request basically was to look at the buildings in the video for himself. The two members of the JTTF spent the better part of a day taking him around the Strip."

This week, several Las Vegas law enforcement officials limited themselves in addressing much of Convertino's criticism because of a gag order issued by the judge presiding over the Detroit terror trial where the possible threat to Las Vegas first became public.

Clark County Undersheriff Doug Gillespie, who has spent three days defending the Metropolitan Police Department to reporters from across the nation, said Tuesday he was extremely frustrated that news media have focused on allegations of a federal prosecutor under investigation for misconduct instead of the many law enforcement leaders disputing his claims.

"I've come to question how the media determines someone's credibility," Gillespie said. "Why does anyone believe this guy?"

The national focus on Las Vegas began Monday following an Associated Press report indicating the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting local casinos. But authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos' legal liability.

One of the tapes, found in Madrid, showed possible al-Qaida European operatives casing Las Vegas casinos in 1997 and engaging in casual conversation that included a possible reference to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The tape, which included footage of the MGM Grand, Excalibur and New York-New York casinos, was sent to al-Qaida's leadership to help in the selection of targets, documents obtained by the AP indicated.

Another video, seized from the apartment of a Detroit terror cell, was used as evidence in the first major terrorism trial following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It shows footage of the same three casinos and Disneyland. Prosecutors presented the footage to jurors as terrorists' surveillance of targets they wanted to raze.

Prosecutors won two terror conspiracy convictions in the case, which included evidence that one defendant referred to Las Vegas as the "city of Satan" and spoke about Islamic extremist "brothers" destroying it.

Las Vegas police have had a much different interpretation of the tape. They have for more than a year characterized the contents of the footage as "tourist-type" video and continued to do so Tuesday.

One Justice Department memo obtained by the AP quotes a federal prosecutor here as saying Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry" if the Detroit video was made public. Goodman reacted by calling the prosecutor a liar.

On Tuesday morning, the mayor asked the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to explore filing a lawsuit against the prosecutor.

A frustrated Goodman said Tuesday afternoon that he has been portrayed in some recent news stories as a cold-hearted character reminiscent of the mayor in the 1975 blockbuster movie "Jaws." That fictional mayor argued that the beaches should remain open on the movie's Amity Island to protect the local tourism industry despite the threat posed by a man-eating shark.

"They portrayed me that way," Goodman said angrily.

The mayor said he first viewed the Detroit tape Tuesday morning.

"It was a very boring hour," Goodman said, noting that the video was little more than an "amateurish travelogue," a characterization chosen by others who have downplayed the significance of the tape.

He said it shows what may be al-Qaida members walking along the Strip, eating, playing slot machines.

"Everything they say they don't like about Las Vegas publicly they were enjoying privately," Goodman said, noting that he wanted this hypocrisy emphasized. "I want you to shove that down their throat."

Also on Tuesday, federal officials said they did not consider Detroit and Madrid terror cells' video surveillance of local casinos a current threat to Las Vegas because the footage was shot in 1997.

The dated nature of evidence suggesting Osama bin Laden's operatives wanted to strike Strip casinos is the key reason the government has no plans to raise the terror alert level in Las Vegas.

"These were shot several years ago. It's no longer timely," said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Homeland Security Department in Washington, D.C. "(The government) does not have any credible, specific threat information indicating al-Qaida is targeting locations in Las Vegas at this time."

However, the al-Qaida photos and sketches of East Coast banks that prompted the department only last week to raise the terror alert level there also were years old, apparently taken in 2000 and 2001.

But a Bush administration official pointed out that the surveillance of banks in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., was updated as late as January of this year and that surveillance is of a much different quality.

"This is low-quality videotapes in Vegas versus 40 pages of detailed information about traffic patterns and the insides and outsides of these financial institutions on the East Coast," the official said. "That's a vast disparity compared to these casings of casinos shot years ago."

Executives of MGM Mirage, Mandalay Resort Group and Caesars Entertainment said Tuesday they experienced no appreciable difference in room reservations or cancellations because of the recent spate of national news stories about a possible terror threat here.

Review-Journal writer Dave Berns contributed to this report.

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