Hearing in Nye County case may not happen next week

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett has been summoned to court in Tonopah next week to discuss the widening legal mess in the county, but even the judge who called for the hearing doubts it will ever take place.

Fifth District Judge John Davis scheduled the June 11 hearing to determine whether to appoint an outside prosecutor in the criminal case against Beckett. Since then, Beckett's defense attorney has petitioned to have Davis removed from the case.

In the document filed Wednesday, attorney Leslie Stovall listed a variety of reasons that Davis should be disqualified, from the judge's relationship with the parties involved to statements he has made about Beckett in court documents and to the media, the Review-Journal in particular.

Davis said Stovall's petition includes some "allegations that aren't true" but fighting to stay on the case is "not worth it."

"I'm not going to resist or anything," said the judge, who has presided over cases in Nye, Esmeralda and Mineral counties for two decades and won his fourth term over Beckett in 2008. "I don't have a dog in this fight."

On May 5, the Nye County Sheriff's Office arrested Beckett and booked him on embezzlement and other charges in connection with a bank account set up by his office to collect restitution payments from people charged with writing bad checks.

Beckett responded by naming two special prosecutors -- first Stovall, then Las Vegas criminal defense attorney C. Conrad Claus -- to bring charges against one of the officers who arrested him.

The result is a 27-count criminal complaint against sheriff's Detective David Boruchowitz, who is accused of using his authority to harass and intimidate Beckett and two candidates running against incumbent Sheriff Tony DeMeo.

At the moment, Beckett is listed as both the prosecuting attorney and one of the victims in the case against Boruchowitz.

The detective, who denies any wrongdoing and remains on the job, is scheduled to be arraigned in Pahrump Justice Court on June 18.

Beckett has yet to be formally charged, and he won't be until -- or perhaps unless -- an outside attorney is brought in to review the evidence and decide whether to prosecute.

Davis seemed poised to name an independent prosecutor, but that job likely now will fall to whatever judge is assigned to the case once he steps aside.

To complicate matters further, it appears that Nye County commissioners might have violated Nevada's open meeting law when they petitioned Davis to bring in an outside prosecutor.

As Stovall and the county's own legal counsel noted during Tuesday's commission meeting, the petition was filed with the District Court without ever being voted on in public.

Deputy District Attorney Marla Zlotek told commissioners that any action taken in violation of the open meeting law is considered void, so the commission's petition for a special prosecutor might not be valid.

That, in turn, raises questions about the validity Davis' order calling for Beckett to appear in court on June 11 and to "refrain from any prosecution of any case against detective David Boruchowitz" in the meantime.

The judge's order came in direct response to the county's petition.

Zlotek indicated that the request for a special prosecutor probably will have to be brought before the commission for a vote and then resubmitted to the court.

County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis agreed.

"We need to do this right, and counsel is evidently saying this is wrong," Hollis said during Tuesday's meeting. But Stovall argued that state law bars the commission from repeating action it took illegally.

On Wednesday, Beckett's lawyer filed an open meeting law complaint against Hollis with the state attorney general's office.

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