Brothel owner loses bid for release

A brothel owner who admitted to trying to bribe a Nye County commissioner has lost his bid to be released from a halfway house while he challenges the terms of his sentence.

Maynard "Joe" Richards has already served about three months of a one-year term in a valley halfway house, but he asked the federal judge who sentenced him to set him free pending the outcome of his appeal.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones denied Richards' request in a ruling issued Wednesday.

As a result, the longtime brothel owner may complete his one-year term in so-called "community confinement" before an appeals court decides whether he deserved such a sentence.

The 75-year-old is not seeking to withdraw his guilty plea. Instead, he is challenging Jones' decision in July to send him to the halfway house and fine him $250,000.

Richards was indicted in 2006 on two felony counts of wire fraud after he was caught on tape paying $5,000 to Candice Trummell, then a Nye County commissioner and a cooperating witness for the FBI.

Richards pleaded guilty to one of the charges earlier this year as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that spared him from prison time.

In the appeal filed Monday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Richards' attorney, Dominic Gentile, argues that Jones handed down a stiffer sentence than the plea agreement allowed, possibly because of the judge's "personal moral disapproval" of the brothel business.

During the July 29 sentencing hearing, Jones suggested that Richards deserved less leniency because of his chosen profession and his involvement in what the judge called "legal even if immoral or reprehensible ... conduct."

Gentile writes that although his client has no criminal record, Jones openly speculated about Richards hiding money from the IRS and engaging in other illegal activity.

Richards is also appealing the most unusual element of his sentence: a ban on making any public comments about Trummell or her family during his five years of probation.

Jones added that condition after Trummell complained in court that Richards had long used his small weekly newspaper in Pahrump to ridicule her and her family.

Gentile argues that the gag order violates his client's constitutional right to free speech.

Officials in Nye County were waiting to see the details of Richards' appeal before taking any action against the licenses he holds for three bordellos north of Pahrump and a strip club in the middle of the town 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

Nye County Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Kent said because the appeal does not seek to reverse the "underlying public corruption conviction," it should not stand in the way of a hearing on Richards' future in the brothel business.

In Nye County, brothel and liquor licenses are governed by a special board that includes the five-member county commission and the sheriff.

Board members were briefed on Richards' appeal on Tuesday. Preparations are now underway for a "show-cause hearing" that could lead to the revocation of his licenses.

Kent said the hearing is likely to be held within the next 30 to 60 days.

Reached at one of his brothels on Tuesday, Richards said he couldn't discuss his appeal or his life in the halfway house.

He is allowed to leave the house during the day to tend to his businesses in Nye County, but at night he must return to Las Vegas to continue his "community confinement."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.