Well, Nye

VS:

Every once and while, a headline grabs me and, well, I just can’t help myself. This one, in the American Bar Association online Journal posted July 6th was just too delicious to resist: “Nevada DA Refuses to Charge Himself After Arrest by Sheriff.” I just had to find out more. It took place in Nye County, Nevada – yeah, I’m picturing some East-Coasters and “I’m so glad I don’t live in the United States” readers rolling their eyes at the “sand states/Western U.S.’ there they go again” behavior – a region that is double the size of the State of New Hampshire. Did I mention that prostitution is legal in these here parts? I know, I know, bad choice of words.

I mean how can you go wrong with quotes from the Journal like this one: “The public fight has spurred one defense lawyer to write in a legal filing, ‘A review of the Internet reveals that Nye County is the laughingstock of the known universe’”? Yum! I want more! The trail led to another article in the July 6th Wall Street Journal: “In May, a Nye County sheriff's deputy arrested the district attorney. The sheriff, Tony De Meo, alleges that the D.A., Robert Beckett, was misusing public funds… According to Mr. De Meo, public money had gone to supporting the local cheerleading squad, led by the D.A.'s wife, and to make a family friend's car payments. No charges have been filed, in part because Mr. Beckett, the D.A., refuses to charge himself.”

It really comes down to the fact that these folks, supposedly on the same side of the law, simply seem to hate each other’s guts (excuse the sophisticated legal jargon). According to the ABA: “The sheriff, Tony De Meo, had claimed Beckett’s arrest was justified because the district attorney misused public funds collected with the aid of the DA’s bad checks unit, the story says. The law allows the DA to collect fees of up to 10 percent of a check’s value to cover administrative costs, to establish programs to battle bad-check writing, or to help crime victims, the story says. The law says the money should be deposited in the county treasury, but Beckett told the Wall Street Journal he got permission to keep the money in a separate account.”

Of course the DA wasn’t going to sit idly by as the sheriff was trying to have his way with him; “Beckett filed [felony] charges against the deputy [David Boruchowitz] who made the arrest after a judge ruled the DA did not have power to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate abuses of power by the sheriff’s office.” Yee haaaa! OMG, this is good! The WSJ supported the obvious conclusion with these observations: “Mr. De Meo, the sheriff, and Mr. Beckett, the D.A., haven't gotten along in years. Mr. De Meo complains that his department arrests people who never get prosecuted. Mr. Beckett contends that some of the sheriff's cases aren't solid… ‘I've often said they need a mother to stop the fighting,’ said Mr. Beckett's wife, JoDee Beckett. ‘It's like two little boys.’

“The public row has already derailed much of the county's criminal-justice system. The cases against Mr. Beckett and Mr. Boruchowitz got bogged down because nearly all of the other local legal figures had some connection to the two suspects. The district court's two sitting county judges both recused themselves, as did a justice of the peace. The state attorney general couldn't get involved because one of its lawyers is running for district attorney.” Oy, what’s a state to do?! The ABA: “The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered a judge far from the [Nye County] town of Pahrump to appoint a special prosecutor to sort out accusations being lobbed in a fight between the sheriff and district attorney there.” I’m so relieved… and the tune humming along in the back of my mind? This is my country, land that I love….

I’m Peter Dekom, and I thought you might like it if I shared!