WEEK IN REVIEW: Top news
Prosecutors presented tearful testimony from a victim of the hepatitis C outbreak and descriptions by a former nurse of a clinic bent on maximizing speed and profits, as the criminal trial of Dr. Dipak Desai got underway last week.
Desai, 63, who gave up his Nevada medical license after health officials disclosed the outbreak in 2008, and nurse anesthetist Ronald Lakeman, 65, face charges including second-degree murder, criminal neglect of patients, theft, and insurance fraud.
Another nurse, Keith Mathahs, 76, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Desai and Lakeman.
The outbreak was blamed on the reuse of contaminated vials of sedative between patients.
Health officials notified more than 63,000 residents that they might have been exposed to the deadly virus.
Desai, Lakeman and Mathahs were indicted in 2010, but the case was delayed after Desai suffered several strokes.
Monday
A fun tax? In Nevada?
All Nevada businesses that offer live entertainment, including brothels, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Burning Man, would have to pay an 8 percent tax under a bill set for introduction by Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas.
She said her live entertainment tax bill will cover “everybody,” ending exemptions for specific businesses and taxing some, such as brothels, that were previously ignored.
Tuesday
The rise returns
After suffering through one of the country’s worst housing downturns, Las Vegas and Nevada are now easily beating the pace of national recovery, according to two new studies.
Still, prices here remain well below peak levels, cash buyers continue to reign and real estate observers increasingly ask how much longer Southern Nevada’s double-digit appreciation rate for home prices can last.
Wednesday
Death penalty case
If convicted, self-proclaimed pimp Ammar Harris could be put to death for a Feb. 21 shooting on the Strip that left three people dead.
Clark County prosecutors announced their intention to seek capital punishment for Harris, 27, who was indicted last month on nearly a dozen charges in the case.
Prosecutors say Harris shot and killed reputed pimp Kenneth “Kenny Clutch” Cherry Jr. as the two were driving separate vehicles on the Strip. The shooting caused Cherry to crash his car into a taxicab, killing driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund.
Thursday
Hawthorne fallout
The battalion commander and two other Marine Corps officers in charge of a March training exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot where seven Marines were killed by a mortar explosion have been relieved of their commands.
The dismissals of Lt. Col. Andrew McNulty, Capt. Kelby Breivogel and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Douglas Derring, all from Camp Lejeune, N.C., comes as investigators are wrapping up their probe of the March 18 training accident, which left seven other Marines and a sailor wounded.
Friday
Food illnesses mount
A new report shows 200 people reported food poisoning symptoms after dining at one of Las Vegas’ most popular restaurants in late April.
Southern Nevada Health District officials said the salmonella outbreak at the Firefly restaurant on Paradise Road was at least twice as extensive as first thought.
Officials said patrons reporting illness hailed from 20 states . Investigators haven’t pinpointed a menu item or ingredient that’s the likely culprit.
NUMBERS
30.6 percent
The surge in Las Vegas Valley home prices from April 2012 to last month, when the median price of an existing single-family home rose to $167,000.
$37.3 billion
How much commercial casinos across the nation collected in 2012, the second-highest figure ever for the gaming industry.
200
The number of people sickened by popular eatery Firefly on Paradise Road, according to the latest figures from health officials. That’s up from 89 a week ago.
$35 million
How much companies that make movies in Nevada would get in tax breaks under one proposed bill. Another bill would slap an 8 percent tax on movie tickets.
QUOTES
"They were moving through there like cattle. Patient care was relegated to the basement."
Prosecutor Mike Staudaher
Describing the operation at Dr. DIpak Desai’s main endoscopy clinic, which was at the center of the 2007 hepatitis C outbreak. His comments came during opening statements in Desai’s criminal trial, now underway.
"You will see that there is not a criminal case here."
Richard Wright
Desai’s defense attorney in his opening statement Tuesday.
"Everybody."
Marilyn Kirkpatrick
The Democratic Assembly Speaker from North Las Vegas, when asked if her proposed entertainment tax would include such things as Burning Man, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Nevada’s legal brothels.
"What would we do if we just had a pile of money? A pile of money is a valueless thing in my opinion."
DEAN BAKER
Talking about his family’s decision not to sell its ranch in Snake Valley on the Nevada-Utah Border 300 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Baker is an outspoken opponent of plans to pipe groundwater to Las Vegas from across rural eastern Nevada, including his valley.
"General Heck"
Yet another new title for Joe Heck, who can already use Dr. and REP. in front of his name. The Nevada Republican and longtime Army Reservist is up for a promotion from colonel to brigadier general.
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will need to reconcile the fact that he’s no longer the most powerful Nevadan in Washington."
The claim made Wednesday by writer Jason Dick from the Capitol Hill news site Roll Call. So if not Reid, who? "That honor falls to Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals’ star outfielder and slugger," Dick writes.
