Lawyer makes pennies and pays price for mail and bank fraud

For a moment, consider David Amesbury as he walked from U.S. District Court this past week. Dressed in a dark suit, Amesbury made his way through a building filled with attorneys whose legal training was not much different from his own.

But on Monday the experienced local lawyer wasn't there to represent a client. Instead, he entered a guilty plea to charges related to the ongoing federal investigation of homeowners associations and construction defect litigation in Southern Nevada.

Before U.S. District Judge James Mahan, Amesbury admitted he conspired to commit mail fraud and bank fraud. Sentencing has been set for Jan. 23, and Amesbury is expected to play a role as a prosecution witness in the government's expanding investigation.

Amesbury, 57, is married to a respected deputy district attorney. His life in the law has changed forever, but I'm not sure he fits the caricature of the longtime unethical lawyer who is finally tripped up by the justice system he used like a doormat. More likely, this is the tale of an honest enough fellow who trades his ethics bit by bit until he finds himself standing in the middle of a quagmire of sleaze where everyone is making money and no one seems the wiser.

The staggering truth is that Amesbury wasn't making a lot of money. While the government is probing whether millions were made by a handful of players in the conspiracy that is said to have included several attorneys and at least one construction defect contractor, Amesbury appears to have sold his career and reputation down the muddy river for peanuts.

In his pleading, he admitted that from March to September 2008 he assisted others in rigging homeowners association elections at the Pebble Creek and Chateau Nouveau complexes. He was a straw man brought in to make the fixed elections look like they were being monitored ethically. For this he was given $3,000.

Some lawyers' suits cost that much.

Amesbury was also a partner in the Courthouse Cafe at the Regional Justice Center with construction company owner Leon Benzer and former Metro Lt. Ben Kim. In court Monday, Amesbury admitted conspiring to defraud banks as he sought refinancing for the cafe, which was later sold and is now a Capriotti's Sandwich Shop. According to court documents, Amesbury and his partners received $8,000 a month from October 2008 to July 2009, to allow an as-yet-unidentified businessman run the cafe under the table.

Do the math and split it three ways. Add the homeowners association election kickback, and Amesbury made about $30,000 for his trouble.

I wonder what he would pay today for the chance to give it all back.

Surely, Amesbury didn't just wake up one morning and say to himself, "I'd like to put my freedom, reputation, and profession at risk today by helping hustle a bunch of square homeowners." I'd like to think the arc of corruption is more gradual than that and doesn't materialize overnight. I'd like to think such behavior grows slowly, like a fungus, as it changes the fabric of men and women who were trained to know better.

It's no solace to Amesbury, but he's not alone. Not by a long shot. And by the time this case brought by the Justice Department's fraud section in Washington, D.C., is complete, he'll have plenty of company.

They won't be a bunch of hapless mopes and simpletons who were fooled by some fast-talking attorney or construction-defect huckster. I believe there will be more lawyers and several former cops, and a number of others who won't be able to plead ignorance of the law.

With more than an ample paper trail and a growing list of prosecution witnesses, defendants must look like fish in a barrel to law enforcement agents and experienced federal prosecutors.

And, with a few exceptions, most will be like David Amesbury, the guy who traded his reputation and a lot more for relative chump change.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.