"Criminal probe starts into Nevada candidate's alleged assault"

[ProgressiveEconomist]

From http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/oct/30/103010628.html :

"By RYAN NAKASHIMA, ASSOCIATED PRESS; LAS VEGAS SUN > NEWS > U.S. > NEVADA

October 30, 2006 at 13:50:15 PST

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Clark County's top prosecutor said Monday that an investigation has been opened into allegations that gubernatorial candidate Rep. Jim Gibbons tried to sexually assault a cocktail waitress in a parking garage after a night of drinking. District Attorney David Roger confirmed the new status of the case, which had been closed after Chrissy Mazzeo, 32, dropped charges, saying she has been pressured and offered cash from people linked to the Gibbons campaign. "This is now an ongoing investigation," Roger told The Associated Press. ... Sheriff Bill Young, who supports Gibbons for governor and was the first to contact Gibbons after Mazzeo's allegations were made to police, refused to release the tapes to Gibbons' lawyer but acknowledged police had them, the suit claims. Young could not immediately be reached for comment. ...

"The (police) will not make any statements until a judge has ruled on a legal matter before the court," the police department said in a release. An emergency hearing was scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday. ...

Also Monday, Gibbons filed a lawsuit seeking to compel police to release surveillance videos that he says will prove he was never inside a parking garage where Mazzeo said the incident took place. The suit filed in Clark County District Court demands Las Vegas police release the tapes, which may document the inside of a parking garage near a restaurant where Gibbons, Mazzeo and others had drinks on the evening of Oct. 13. Police, who previously said surveillance cameras in the garage weren't working and there were no tapes of the evening, continued to deflect media inquiries about the tapes' existence, even after a property management company for the garage said it turned hours of tapes over to authorities. ... "Failure to produce the videotapes ... violates U.S. Rep. Gibbons' right to seek public office and the public's fundamental right to make an informed vote," the suit says.

Gibbons was leading in the gubernatorial race, according to an Oct. 27 poll with support from 47 percent of respondents, compared with Titus' 41 percent. ... Most of the polling, by Research 2000 of Washington D.C., was conducted after the allegations were first reported but before Mazzeo held a news conference Oct. 25 to recount her version of the events. The poll conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal and KRNV-TV had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points."