Henderson city attorney told police she’d had ‘bottles’ of wine before accident

Henderson City Attorney Elizabeth Quillin told police she'd had "bottles" of wine before she crashed her Lexus and then nearly ran over a woman who stopped to help her Monday afternoon.

According to a Henderson police report of the incident, Quillin admitted to drinking before the 2:45 p.m. crash at Paseo Verde Parkway and Carnegie Street, west of Green Valley Parkway.

Witnesses said Quillin was turning left onto Carnegie when her sport utility vehicle went off the road and hit a fire hydrant, a boulder and a tree.

A woman who stopped to check on Quillin said that as she approached the vehicle, it backed away from the tree and drove forward back onto the road, nearly hitting her.

Quillin's vehicle then sideswiped the woman's parked car and went off the road a second time, hitting another tree.

Two other witnesses said the vehicle tried to back up again but was too damaged to drive. That's when Quillin got out and started to walk away. When the witnesses approached her, they said it was "obvious she was drunk," according to the police report.

Quillin's speech was slow and slurred when she told police that she had been drinking in the middle of the work day. When asked whether she was feeling the effects of the alcohol, she said, "Yes, I am (expletive) up."

Police found a full-size bottle of Barefoot Chardonnay, open and nearly empty, in her back seat and a large puddle of wine on the floorboards in front of the driver's seat.

After she failed a field sobriety test, the 51-year-old Quillin was booked into the Henderson jail on charges of drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident and having an open container in a vehicle.

She was released on her own recognizance at 2:49 a.m. Tuesday.

She is scheduled to be arraigned in Henderson Municipal Court on June 20.

AIMING TO AVOID PERCEPTION ISSUE

Municipal court administrator David Hayward said the city is looking for someone to hear Quillin's case.

"We're going to be assigning this case to a judge outside of this court just to avoid any perception issue. That's just the right thing to do," he said.

The case will probably also require the services of a special prosecutor from outside Henderson, since misdemeanor cases are usually handled by one of the prosecutors in the city attorney's office.

Quillin was hired by the office in 2007 to handle civil matters. The City Council appointed her city attorney in June 2009.

Before joining the legal staff for the city , she worked as an assistant county manager for Clark County. Before that, she served as the chief deputy attorney general for Southern Nevada, a post she was appointed to by then-Attorney General Brian Sandoval.

Quillin was placed on paid administrative leave shortly after her arrest.

In Henderson, the jobs of city attorney, city manager and city clerk are filled through appointment by the City Council, which acts as direct supervisor for those positions.

Councilman Steve Kirk said Quillin usually notifies the council when she plans to take vacation, but he doesn't remember seeing anything indicating that she would not be at work on Monday.

Henderson spokesman Bud Cranor said the city has no record of any leave requests from Quillin for Monday.

Quillin recently had her Summerlin house foreclosed upon after she defaulted on her mortgage, according to county records.

She purchased the 2,424-square-foot two-story house near Palo Verde High School in early 2007 for $580,000. She defaulted on the mortgage in February 2010, and the bank foreclosed a year later.

The house sold at auction in March for $248,273.

STATEMENT OF APOLOGY

"I would like to apologize to the Mayor, City Council, my colleagues, family and friends for my misconduct and assume full responsibility for my actions," Quillin said in a prepared statement released Tuesday. "I am seeking immediate treatment from an inpatient facility and ask that I be allowed this time of privacy in order to address my underlying illness."

A drunken driving charge is not necessarily a career-ending event.

Boulder City Attorney David Olsen kept his job after a 2003 drunken driving arrest, though he probably helped his own cause by pleading no contest to the charge and requesting an unusually stiff sentence for a first offender that included six days in jail.

Voters in Nye County were less sympathetic to District Attorney Bob Beckett, who was arrested on a drunken driving charge in 2008. The four-term incumbent finished last in the 2010 primary election, then resigned from office two months early after a second drunken driving arrest.

According to the Henderson jail's website, this was Quillin's first arrest on a charge of driving under the influence.

Quillin's job is to provide legal representation to Mayor Andy Hafen and the City Council and supervise the city's staff of civil attorneys and criminal prosecutors.

Her base salary is $190,000 a year. She does not receive a car allowance or have her own city vehicle to drive.

Senior Assistant City Attorney Christine Guerci-Nyhus has been named as the acting city attorney in Quillin's absence.

Review-Journal writer Brian Haynes contributed to this report. Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.