Judge: ‘Odd’ cases by process server caught eye

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa explained on the witness stand Wednesday how she helped uncover irregularities that led to the indictment of the owner of an unlicensed process-serving company on charges of filing false court affidavits.

In a rare appearance as a prosecution witness, the judge said she "noticed things that were odd" about the way default cases involving Maurice Carroll and his company, On Scene Mediations, were being handled and turned over that information to Las Vegas police.

Carroll, a 42-year-old former police officer, is standing trial in the courtroom of District Judge Elissa Cadish on 17 counts of perjury, 17 counts of offering false instruments for filing or record and one count of obtaining money under false pretenses.

He is alleged to have submitted false affidavits of service on May 13 and June 13 in civil cases involving one of his clients, debt collector Richland Holdings.

Las Vegas Justice Court officials say Carroll's actions might have harmed the court system over a period of years, and police are continuing to investigate him. Court officials plan to hire a special-hearing master to see whether the rights of any of the defendants were violated in some 25,000 civil default cases linked to companies that used On Scene Mediations to serve court papers.

In his opening statement Wednesday, Carroll's attorney, Craig Mueller, told the jury the criminal case is not about wrongdoing by Carroll but rather about "government attempting to regulate matters it doesn't understand."

Mueller said Saragosa should have handled her concerns within the confines of her authority as a judge and should not have gone to police.

But as the prosecution's first witness, Saragosa testified that she made her own internal inquiries and thought that someone other than the courts needed to investigate further.

"We're not investigators," she testified. "It was not our role to investigate this."

In his opening statement, Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Staudaher told the jury it would be hearing a "straightforward case" about a defendant who admitted to police that he was not even in town when he was supposed to have served sworn affidavits.

Prosecutors allege Carroll failed to serve documents in 17 Richland Holdings cases but certified in affidavits that he had.

The defendants in those cases were hit with default judgments after failing to show up for hearings they knew nothing about. Several of those defendants testified on Wednesday.

When pressed by Staudaher on the witness stand, Paul Liggio, the owner of Richland Holdings, acknowledged that it was likely "impossible" for Carroll to have served all of the people he claimed in affidavits to have served on May 13 and June 13.

Staudaher told the jury that a police analysis showed Carroll swore he served 12 people on May 13 at both ends of the valley in less than three hours. Carroll also claimed to have served five people at both sides of town within 95 minutes on June 13, Staudaher said.

Under cross-examination from Mueller, Liggio said On Scene Mediations had the most success reaching defendants out of all of the process-serving companies he had used over the years.

"Nobody compared with the results that he got," Liggio said. "I judge that by the phone calls I got from people he served."

Carroll has appeared relaxed and often observed smiling in the presence of the jury. With Liggio on the stand, Carroll and Liggio laughed at each other while the attorneys were privately discussing a matter with Cadish at the bench.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135 or read more courts coverage at lvlegalnews.com.