Bill Young Applauds mayor

HE MAY HAVE TAKEN A STAND AGAINST GANGSTA RAP, but Sheriff Bill Young isn't opposed to a Mayor Oscar Goodman-backed proposal to create an organized crime museum in the historic former post office and courthouse on Stewart Avenue.

"I am not going to knock it," Young said Wednesday at a meeting with the local media. "I'm glad to see he (Goodman) admits that the mob even exists."

During his celebrated career as a defense attorney, Goodman was known to dispute whether there ever was such an entity as the mob or organized crime.

"He's turned 180 degrees on that," Young said.

FRANCIS MCCABE

NEVADA'S WOULD-BE FIRST GENTLEMAN HAD A MISHAP worthy of the Cartoon Network recently.

Explaining why she was late to an April 15 League of Women Voters forum, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus said, "When your husband steps off a ladder onto some nails after getting the neighbor's cat out of the chimney, you have to go to Quick Care."

Titus' husband, Tom Wright, who is, like Titus, a professor at UNLV, is fine. His pride reportedly was hurt worse than his foot.

MOLLY BALL

GET A BUNCH OF DEMOCRATS TOGETHER, AND THEY WILL MAKE FUN of Republicans.

At a fundraiser for the Paradise Democratic Club on Monday night, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, Charlie Waterman, noted that former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole was at that moment giving a speech at UNLV.

"I understand he's talking about two things," Waterman said. "He's talking about leadership, which he knows nothing about, and he's talking about Viagra, which he knows a lot about."

Titus continued the riffs on Republicans by recounting something she said a supporter told her on the campaign trail. Bringing up the hot-button issue of immigration, the supporter said, "If we're going to close the border, couldn't we at least do it while George Bush is in Cancun?"

MOLLY BALL

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "The suspect vehicle is all over the road. Possibly having sex while driving."

PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES HAS EXPANDED ITS BUSINESS in recent years into pay-per-view television, the Internet and retail, Christie Hefner, Playboy's chairwoman and chief executive officer, said Wednesday.

Video games represent a particularly lucrative market, Hefner told those at a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce-sponsored luncheon at the Rio.

Playboy last year launched "Playboy: The Mansion," its first video game title. Players assume the role of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, Christie's father, as he builds a global magazine empire from the ground up.

If they're successful, players' in-game characters make money, build their own Playboy Mansion and "live George Maloof's life," Christie Hefner quipped of the Palms owner and noted bachelor, who attended Wednesday's event.

CHRIS JONES

DURING THE ONGOING POLITICAL CORRUPTION TRIAL of Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, defense attorney Jerry Bernstein asked Herrera if he met with Lance Malone in a restaurant bathroom and accepted a $5,000 cash bribe.

"I'd find it uncommon for two guys to go to the bathroom together," Herrera said.

On cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Schiess asked why it was uncommon and noted that he and Herrera went to the bathroom together on trial breaks. Bernstein and defense attorney Richard Wright both jumped up and objected.

"There's only one bathroom, your honor," Bernstein said. "And we're real limited on time," Wright added.

During the next break, Bernstein told the judge: "Let the record reflect I'll go to the bathroom before Mr. Schiess."

ADRIENNE PACKER

HERRERA INSISTED THAT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH STRIP CLUB OWNER Michael Galardi, from whom Herrera is accused of accepting bribes, was purely professional. Schiess then played an intercepted telephone call between Herrera and Galardi, during which Galardi brags about buying yet another GMC Denali.

"You (expletive)," Herrera said.

"Do you refer to the people you have a professional relationship with as (expletives)?" Schiess asked.

ADRIENNE PACKER

A WELL-KNOWN INTERNET COMPANY IS MARKETING ITSELF using an apparent reference to the tiger attack that injured Roy Horn.

Vonage, a Holmdel, N.J.-based provider of online long-distance phone service, is advertising through billboards attached to the sides of Citizens Area Transit buses. One sign spotted Tuesday near Valley Hospital said, "Signing up for Vonage. Good. Keeping a white tiger for a pet. Bad."

Horn nearly died after being mauled onstage by a pet tiger during a 2003 performance of Siegfried & Roy at The Mirage.

CHRIS JONES