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Nevada Attorney General Del Papa's Newly Released Report: Allegations Not Substantiated, No Charges Filed

None of the allegations in the intelligence report, which appeared to dredge up long discarded conspiracy theories about Nevada gaming, were ever substantiated and no criminal charges were ever filed against those named.

At one point, Ron Wheatley (the investigator for Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa who wrote the report) said several reliable sources had told him a well-known slot machine manufacturer was laundering money for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Wheatley said that when one source was asked how alleged laundering came to light, the source replied, "You hear things."

Former Gov. Bob Miller called the allegations about him in the report "pure BS."

"Obviously, nothing came of any of it," he said. "It's all baloney." The former governor added: "If that's the level of the way the investigation was conducted, it isn't worth the paper it's written on."

U.S. Senator Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor, called his connection to the allegations "outrageous and an absolute fabrication."

"I'm personally offended by this completely unsubstantiated and ludicrous fairy tale," he said.

Harry Reid, Nevada's other U.S. Senator, said he was "insulted by the outrageous and absurd allegations." Bible is a "man of great integrity with a proven track record as a gaming regulator that is beyond reproach," Reid said.

Gaming attorney Frank Schreck, a prominent political fund-raiser who has worked on the campaigns of the last three governors, said the allegations about him were "ridiculous."

"This doesn't make any sense," he added. "It's besmirching the reputations of some of the finest public servants this state has ever seen."

Former state Gaming Control Board Chairman Bill Bible, who publicly called for the release of the documents, said he found it hard to believe that Del Papa pursued the probe of him.

"I'm incredulous that the attorney general's office would launch an investigation of me because of the word of an individual who was denied a gaming license," he said.

"In the same breath that he makes these allegations about me, he also claims former Gov. Sawyer, Gov. Miller, Sens. Bryan and Reid and other prominent members of the community also participated in the bribe."

Former Control Board member Gerald Cunningham said he was "astonished" to learn what was included in the report.

"I knew there was going to be some trash in there, but some of this stuff is mind-boggling," he said. "If Hollis said these things, then he's an absolute liar."

Cunningham said the report bordered on being "irresponsible."

"You don't just take stuff and stick it in a report without attempting to verify it," he said. "It's very unprofessional."

The Sun first reported word of the intelligence probe on March 26, 1997, in a story that featured an interview with Anzalone.

On April 1, 1997, Del Papa issued a statement to the Sun saying: "The attorney general's office did not investigate Gaming Control Board members during the course of the Harris case, nor is there a current investigation of this nature."

On Tuesday (April 4), however, as she made public the intelligence report and the other documents, Del Papa acknowledged for the first time that she indeed had investigated Bible.

"A limited search of public records concerning real estate holdings and automobile title and registration information was conducted," she said in a two-page news release. "That inquiry, which occurred more than a year after Michael Anzalone left his employment with the attorney general's office, indicated to this office that the allegations against Bill Bible were unfounded."

Documents Del Papa turned over Tuesday show that Wheatley obtained Bible's property and Department of Motor Vehicle records on April 25, 1997, less than a month after she denied investigating him. Wheatley, she said, sought the records after a confidential source alleged that Bible was receiving payoffs.

Anzalone has contended that he was asked to illegally obtain Bible's bank and telephone records as far back as early 1996, long before Harris agreed to cooperate. The former investigator said he declined the request, and no such records were among those made public Tuesday.

In a 16-page memo chronicling the Harris investigation for the media, Del Papa acknowledged that she was investigating Bible as late as Jan. 13, 1998.

She said her office re-checked property records at that time after another confidential source suggested Bible had "accepted payoffs" and "that the proceeds were hidden under his wife's maiden name.

"Ironically and disingenuously, certain individuals have elected to fault this office for conducting such an inquiry," Del Papa said in her news release. "The fact is that we performed our statutory responsibility to investigate allegations of criminal conduct committed by state officers in the course of their duties.

"This office would rightfully be subject to severe criticism had we failed to perform that duty. We have never in the past and will never ignore allegations of criminal conduct within our jurisdiction simply because the people against whom such allegations are made are too big, or too rich or too powerful."

Anzalone's Phoenix lawyer, Christine Manno, said she agreed that the attorney general has a right to investigate alleged misconduct involving state employees.

But she added: "They should have opened an investigative file on Bill Bible or anyone else they were investigating and not try to do it under the criminal case of Ron Harris."

In the memo to the media, Del Papa went to great lengths to criticize Anzalone, disclosing that her office investigated him on allegations he might have tried to "corruptly impede" the Harris investigation.

The attorney general also criticized the Sun's coverage of the story the past three years.

She said she asked Thompson to write a lengthy report discussing alleged inaccuracies in a series of Sun stories to clear up what she called "public confusion create by the articles."

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