AG asks for Nevada Supreme Court ruling in union trespassing dispute

Attorney General Adam Laxalt is appealing a judge’s ruling in a trespassing case to the Nevada Supreme Court.

In a 28-page filing last week, Laxalt asked the high court to allow his office to join in a dispute over a citation against two Culinary Local 226 representatives who distributed fliers at the Red Rock Resort.

That put the trespassing case on hold.

Late last year, Las Vegas police cited Maria Yesenia Hernandez Escalante, 23, and Ramiro Funez, 24, after they were seen slipping fliers under guest room doors on the hotel’s 12th floor.

As the Culinary union fought the citation, prosecutors filed a criminal complaint in February that charged Escalante with one count of trespassing and one count of vagrancy, both misdemeanors, saying she “did willfully and unlawfully prowl upon the private property of another, without visible or lawful business with the owner.”

Prosecutors argued that the representatives were in a restricted area of Red Rock after they somehow managed to find their way into a part of the hotel that could be accessed only by a guest key card.

In April, after defense lawyers called the vagrancy charge unconstitutional, prosecutors offered another criminal complaint. The new complaint, which removed the vagrancy charge, claimed Escalante and Funez went to Red Rock Resort “with the intent to vex or annoy the owner.”

Defense attorneys argued that the wording in the new complaint also was unconstitutional.

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis agreed and found no reason to allow the attorney general to intervene.

Still, she gave the prosecutors another chance to amend the charge.

Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith wrote in court papers that the attorney general should be notified anytime a judge declares a law unconstitutional. He contended that someone from the attorney general’s office should have had the opportunity to argue on the issue of constitutionality.

“The Attorney General is the state’s chief law enforcement officer,” Smith wrote. “It is his duty, except in rare circumstances, to defend the constitutionality of all state statutes.”

Lippis’ decision, he continued, could result in “a massive disruption in the orderly working of the Nevada legal system.”

Defense lawyers have said the level of interjection from the district attorney’s office and the attorney general’s office in a labor dispute is unprecedented.

“It seems the decisions are coming out of Station Casinos versus any sort of legal basis,” said attorney Tom Pitaro, who represents the union representatives. “We will not let our members be improperly pushed around by any government authority or any casino.”

Officials at Red Rock Resorta, the new name od Station Casinos, have declined to comment on the case.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find @randompoker on Twitter.