DA declines to fight reinstatement of former prosecutor

The district attorney’s office is not fighting an arbitrator’s decision to give a veteran prosecutor under federal scrutiny her job back.

Former Chief Deputy District Attorney Victoria Villegas has been informed by the office that she will be reinstated. She is to report for assignment Sept. 3 to Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lalli.

In an Aug. 2 letter to her attorney, Adam Levine, an administrator in the district attorney’s office said there are no vacancies, but the office was working with Clark County to create and fund a position for her.

District attorney Steve Wolfson, who fired Villegas in February 2012, would not comment on where she would be assigned. Levine also declined comment.

Villegas, 53, once in the running to become Nevada’s U.S. attorney, is the former wife of attorney David Amesbury, who killed himself last year under the weight of the federal homeowners association investigation. He pleaded guilty and was cooperating in the high-profile corruption case.

Villegas was fired for abusing weeks of family sick leave and lying to FBI agents about her knowledge of a bank fraud scheme involving Amesbury and the chief target of the HOA investigation, former construction company boss Leon Benzer.

But late last month, arbitrator Philip Tamoush issued a 14-page decision concluding there was “no just cause” for Wolfson to let Villegas go. The decision to fire her was put in motion by Wolfson’s predecessor, David Roger.

Tamoush ordered county management to return Villegas to her job with back pay and benefits. He concluded she did not lie to FBI agents and her abuse of family leave did not rise to the level of being fired for it.

Villegas took family leave to help her husband recover from a severe beating in November 2011. But she soon fled to France in fear of her own safety and sought psychiatric counseling there.

Prior to her termination, Villegas had been with the district attorney’s office since May 1989.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.