Las Vegas police search six sites in investigation of counseling service provider

A Las Vegas police investigation into a counseling service that did business with the courts and casinos has taken on a new focus with a new round of court-authorized searches.

Detectives executed a half-dozen search warrants Tuesday at the home of Steven Brox, the owner of United States Justice Associates, and at other places, including the law office of an attorney linked to Brox.

Capt. Al Salinas of the department's Organized Crime Bureau said Wednesday that the investigation is on whether Brox sold fraudulent certificates stating people had completed his counseling programs.

Attorney Brian Bloomfield, whose office was raided, did not return phone calls Wednesday.

But a copy of a six-page search warrant obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal said police wanted all correspondence between Bloomfield and Brox and their staffs related to the cases of 22 people who had signed up for counseling programs at United States Justice Associates.

The company, which is no longer in business, was one of several that offered counseling programs for alcohol and drug abuse, AIDS awareness, anger management and petty larceny to those charged with misdemeanors. At sentencing, justices of the peace often order defendants to attend such programs as part of an effort to steer them out of the justice system and keep them from returning.

Brox, who separately is facing sexual assault charges, also solicited business from casinos. When the casinos detained people on trespassing and other minor criminal charges, the casinos were to route those people into Brox's program rather than calling police to make the arrests, detectives alleged in sworn affidavits last year. Once enrolled, the detainees were charged $500 and the company would kick back $100 to the casinos for each person who completed the program. The transactions amounted to an end run on the justice system, police alleged.

Detectives first searched the downtown office of United States Justice Associates in September looking for evidence that the company was extorting the recruits. The enrollees were shown a "threatening" video that police alleged implied the people would land in jail if they didn't complete the program.

At the time of the September raid, detectives interviewed District Judge Doug Smith, who had given Brox a letter of endorsement while chief justice of the peace to use in Brox's pitches to the casinos. Police, however, have not conducted any court-authorized searches of Smith's home or office, and they would not comment on his status in the investigation.

Attorney Robert Draskovich, who represents Brox, said Wednesday that his client has not committed any wrongdoing. Draskovich also said he was concerned about what he called the "legality" of the latest search on Brox.

"They came and seized items they left at the previous search," he said. "They have to have new probable cause. Law enforcement doesn't have an open invitation to raid citizens' homes."

Draskovich said his client told him more than a dozen officers entered his home Tuesday morning and held him at gunpoint, seizing his cell phone and interrogating him for 2½ hours outside the presence of a lawyer.

The justification for Tuesday's raid is unknown because a sworn police affidavit requesting the search warrant remains under seal.

According to a list of items seized at Brox's home, detectives, among other things, took a laptop computer, several boxes of business and bank records, a digital recorder and a box of videotapes.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.