Union will pay Review-Journal attorney fees in settlement over Henderson jail video

The Las Vegas Review-Journal and a law enforcement union have reached a settlement in a lawsuit over the news organization’s publication of images showing Henderson correctional officers. The agreement requires the union to pay Review-Journal attorney fees.

The litigation followed a 2023 investigative story in which the Review-Journal reported that Henderson jail officers received $5 million in overtime over a three-year period but failed to follow policies regarding use of force, searching inmates for drugs and helping inmates when they overdosed.

As part of the investigation, the news organization published still images and video of corrections officers in jail surveillance footage that was provided by a source, not the Henderson Police Department. The Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers’ union, which represents correctional officers at the jail, sued in response.

The union alleged in the lawsuit that the Review-Journal violated a law that makes images of officers confidential when those images are possessed by law enforcement agencies. The union wanted the court to order the Review-Journal to blur or conceal the faces of officers because the surveillance footage originated from the Henderson Police Department.

‘Freedom to publish’

Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said the law clearly doesn’t apply to news organizations.

“It would be obviously unconstitutional if a law said the press couldn’t publish specific kinds of materials under a news organization’s control,” Cook said. “Just as we have the freedom to report from source-provided government documents that agencies would have redacted or never provided at all, we have the freedom to publish video images that were not obtained through Henderson’s preferred channels.”

Andrew Regenbaum, the union’s executive director, said the union agreed to pay a portion of the Review-Journal’s legal fees and the parties agreed to end the litigation.

“It’s a shame we had to spend all this time, effort and money fighting what we believed to be a baseless case,” Review-Journal Chief Legal Officer Benjamin Lipman said. “It’s also a shame that the union put its members in the position of having to pay legal fees we would be due under the law.”

Regenbaum said the union’s members “were appreciative of the fight on their behalf” and will not be directly on the hook for the fees, which will be paid from the organization’s general operating budget. The funds for that budget come from member dues, he said, but officers will not see increased costs because of the settlement.

“I don’t ever regret trying to protect my officers,” Regenbaum said. “The Review-Journal took the lawsuit as an attempt to impinge upon their First Amendment rights and that was never our intent.”

Lipman said the dollar amount of the settlement is confidential.

Supreme Court reversal

District Judge Mark Denton ruled that the Review-Journal did not have to unpublish or change the footage, but denied an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss. The news organization appealed the denial, which the Nevada Supreme Court determined to be erroneous.

SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. The Nevada Supreme Court previously ruled in a case involving Steve Wynn that Nevada’s anti-SLAPP laws were designed to limit claims against “a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest.”

Lipman was confident the news organization would have won the case after the Supreme Court decision. The settlement followed that ruling, he said.

“The uncertainty of continuing the litigation and the cost of essentially starting over obviously was influential towards getting this thing settled,” Regenbaum said.

Cook said the case serves as a warning to anyone who might sue to challenge the news organization’s publication power.

“Outside parties do not dictate our news coverage,” Cook said. “The Constitution is on the side of a free press.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.