A court clerk was sitting in on a closed hearing this summer when she became concerned that Family Court Judge Cheryl Moss might grant an attorney's request to destroy records in the divorce case.

The clerk, Sharon Phelps, began sending e-mails from the courtroom to her supervisor, Assistant Court Clerk Diana Alba, seeking guidance. The e-mails set in motion a series of events that eventually led to the involvement of Acting Chief District Judge Valerie Adair.

Two days later, on June 28, Adair sent the following e-mail to Alba's boss, Clark County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre:

"If Judge Moss issues an order directing the clerk to destroy any part of the file or record, please notify me immediately. We are going to take the steps necessary to protect the file until we are able to receive direction from the Supreme Court. Please do not act to implement the order until you have received direction from me."

The e-mail is one of several related to the matter that were obtained last week by the Review-Journal. Because the divorce case is sealed, Deputy District Attorney Michael Foley redacted portions of the e-mails to eliminate references to information contained in the case file, including the names of the attorneys.

Parraguirre, who recently was elected to a third term, said Moss' actions in the case demonstrate the need for an independent court clerk to maintain court records. Parraguirre has served in the role of court clerk since she took office in 1999, but the district judges in Clark County recently received approval from the Nevada Supreme Court to take control of the court clerk's duties.

Of the county's 33 district judges, 27 voted for the change, which was proposed by Chief District Judge Kathy Hardcastle. Adair and Moss are among those who supported the proposal. Moss did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Adair said an "overwhelming majority" of the judges already had ratified Hardcastle's proposal by the time it came to her for a signature, and steps already had been taken toward implementing the change.

"I deferred to the judgment of the chief judge, because I think she had more information on the entire situation than I did," Adair said.

Under the current system, Parraguirre said, court clerks can seek her intervention if a judge asks them to do something improper with a court record. With the new system, judges can order clerks in their courtrooms to do whatever they want "and no one would ever be the wiser," she said.

During the hearing this summer in Moss' courtroom, Alba said, Phelps became alarmed after listening to comments made in court. From her position near the judge, Phelps could hear discussions that took place off the record, as well as statements that were recorded by the court's audiovisual system, Alba said.

Phelps, now employed as Family Court Judge Nicholas Del Vecchio's secretary, declined to be interviewed.

Alba and Parraguirre both reviewed a tape of the divorce hearing, which centered on the division of the couple's assets. Parraguirre said one attorney asked Moss if she would entertain a motion in writing to destroy some of the court records, and Moss said she would.

Moss also ordered that the case be "super-sealed," meaning that no one outside the clerk's office could access the records without a court order, a treatment usually reserved only for adoption cases.

In a June 28 e-mail, Adair asked Parraguirre who had physical possession of the file and wrote, "I hope it doesn't come to this, but if it does, I was going to direct the clerk to bring the file and all exhibits to the Regional Justice Center, where they will be placed into a safe until we get a decision from the Supreme Court on the writ we will be filing."

Parraguirre said she had the entire file sent to her office and had an employee check daily to see whether the attorney filed a motion requesting the destruction of records. The attorney never did.

Meanwhile, Phelps prepared minutes that summarized what she had heard in court, but e-mails show that Moss later disputed those minutes and prepared a "clerk's note" to be added to the minutes.

According to the note, Moss had reviewed the video record of the hearing and concluded that Phelps' minutes were inaccurate. The note lists nine corrections that "shall be added" to the minutes, although the corrections were blacked out in the copy provided to the Review-Journal.

Moss also inquired about giving the original tape to the attorneys involved in the proceeding, according to a June 27 e-mail by transcription video supervisor Shelly Ajoub.

In a July 14 e-mail to Moss, Parraguirre informed the judge that she and Alba had reviewed the tape from the hearing and disagreed with the judge's contention that the minutes were inaccurate.

By Aug. 3, Hardcastle had returned from an out-of-state trip and resumed her role as chief judge. She also had adopted a decidedly different tone than Adair had in her correspondence regarding the Moss matter.

In an e-mail to Parraguirre on that date, Hardcastle wrote, "The judge may direct the entry of a minute order even if it is different from the clerk's minutes. Both will be there for review.

"This has been done in the past. As you know, the clerks sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes the judge makes mistakes. Your intentional interference in this matter is being viewed as an attempt to further your own political agenda."

Adair said she did not consider Parraguirre's actions politically motivated. "I think Shirley was legitimately concerned," the judge said.

Alba said the case file now contains two sets of minutes.

"They're not consistent with each other," she said.

Parraguirre acknowledged that she may have alienated some judges in the past by refusing to do their bidding.

The county clerk said she has refused more than once to allow a judge to alter the court minutes in a case, and she has not allowed judges to select their own court clerks.

She said she also once refused a request from a judge who wanted a copy of an adoption decree for a friend. Parraguirre said the law precludes anyone, even the parties involved in the case, from accessing an adoption file without a court order. Parraguirre declined to identify the judge who made the request.

Additionally, Parraguirre has bumped heads with District Judge Donald Mosley over his handling of the court file from his own child-custody case.

In October 2001, the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission secretly offered Mosley the chance to resolve a related ethics complaint by issuing a confidential letter of apology.

The complaint stemmed from Mosley's decision to keep in his chambers the court file from his child-custody dispute with Terry Mosley, the mother of his son.

Terry Mosley said she filed the complaint in 2000 after she went looking for the court file and learned that Judge Mosley had been keeping it in his chambers.

Parraguirre said she found the file in Judge Mosley's chambers after Terry Mosley inquired about it.

Judges often review court files in their chambers to prepare for cases over which they are presiding. Parraguirre said this case differed from other cases because Judge Mosley was a party and not the presiding judge, and because the file was sealed.

"I don't personally think that my office should have released a sealed file out of this office," Parraguirre told the Review-Journal in 2001.

Parraguirre stressed that, as a party in the custody case, Judge Mosley had a right to review the file. She said she did not know how long the file had been in Mosley's chambers.

"It was kept down there longer than it should have been," Parraguirre said at the time.

Mosley was among the judges who supported the move to take over the court clerk's duties.