‘Often confused and often irresponsible’: Wolfson fires back at Chattah’s criticism of Israeli official’s release in child sex case

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Wednesday that acting U.S. attorney Sigal Chattah has demonstrated an “unfitness to serve” as the two prosecutors battle publicly over the handling of a child sex sting case involving an Israeli official.

Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a 38-year-old cybersecurity official, posted $10,000 bail on Aug. 7, a day after his arrest, then returned home. He was one of eight men arrested on suspicion of luring or attempting to lure a child with computer technology to engage in sexual conduct.

Online critics have accused the government of intervening on behalf of Israel, something the U.S. State Department has denied.

Wolfson has said that Alexandrovich’s bail was “standard,” meaning it was pre-set by the court and required no release conditions. Alexandrovich never appeared before a judge, according to the district attorney, who disputes that the defendant received special treatment.

Chattah waded into the controversy Monday night with an X post that said, “A liberal district attorney and state court judge in Nevada FAILED TO REQUIRE AN ALLEGED CHILD MOLESTER TO SURRENDER HIS PASSPORT, which allowed him to flee our country.”

‘Often confused and often irresponsible’

The district attorney said Wednesday that his federal counterpart wrote the post hours after the two spoke about Alexandrovich’s case.

“She was very, very pleased that we were handling the case, because she said that she had no interest in handling it,” Wolfson said, adding that he thought she was referring to the group of eight arrestees.

He called Chattah’s post “a rant with false claims.”

“I’m not sure which judge that our U.S. attorney was referring to, because she’s often confused and often irresponsible in her assertions,” he added. “Whatever state court judge she was referencing, it’s a false and reckless claim. Those claims could not be farther from the truth. I deal with facts, not political garbage. This behavior by our U.S. attorney is further evidence of her unfitness to serve.”

Henderson Justice Court records indicate that Justice of the Peace Stephen George reviewed the case on Aug. 7, after the defendant had bailed out, to determine whether police had probable cause for the arrest.

A county spokesperson said the court could not comment on open cases.

Chattah responds

Chattah responded to Wolfson’s comments in a phone interview Wednesday.

“We don’t want foreigners coming to Las Vegas, committing crimes and then getting on planes and going back home, do we?” she said. “Is that really the policy of what we want people to know, that in Las Vegas, you can come to Las Vegas, commit a crime, then jump on a plane and go back home without any consequence?”

The federal prosecutor confirmed that she spoke to Wolfson about the case.

“I told him that at this time, since his office is prosecuting it, that at that time, we were going to leave it with his office,” she said.

Her office has not reviewed all the evidence, she said, but is investigating whether there may be corollary federal charges.

Wolfson said Chattah should apologize to him and his judicial colleagues.

She declined to comment on that request.

Prominent Las Vegas attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld represent Alexandrovich. Chesnoff was appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council by President Donald Trump.

“Any suggestion that anybody in authority did anything special for him is completely inaccurate,” Chesnoff told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday. “He was treated just as anybody would be who got arrested.”

The attorney said Wednesday that people should not rush to judgment and that his client intends to vigorously defend himself.

Wolfson said defendants who live in other countries are allowed to go home after posting bail. It’s unusual in state court for suspects to be required to surrender their passports, he said.

“It’s the rarity that they don’t return,” he said.

‘Inflammatory public statements’

The district attorney is not the only person who thinks Chattah is unfit to hold her position. Nevada Democratic Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, as well as a group of retired judges, have made similar assertions.

Rosen and Cortez Masto also have criticized Trump’s decision to appoint her as acting U.S. attorney, which Chattah has said the president did just before her role as interim U.S. attorney was about to expire in late July.

“This unprecedented maneuver sets a dangerous standard and risks holding up critical criminal cases just so that President Trump can play political games,” Cortez Masto said in a statement at the time.

Rosen’s office said Chattah’s appointment was designed to bypass Congress.

Chattah said she was made acting U.S. attorney “because it became clear that the blue slips weren’t going to be given by the senators.”

Under the blue-slip process, home state senators must sign off on a nominee.

A group of retired state and federal judges wrote a letter to the federal court in Nevada in late July, urging members of the court not to appoint Chattah when her interim appointment expired.

If an interim U.S. attorney’s appointment expires, the federal District Court for that district appoints an interim U.S. attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled, according to the Office of the Inspector General.

The retired judges wrote in their letter, “Chattah’s history of racially charged, violence-tinged, and inflammatory public statements demonstrates that she lacks the temperament to serve as U.S. attorney.”

One example they noted was Chattah’s comment in a 2021 text message exchange that Aaron Ford, who is Black and now serves as Nevada’s attorney general, “should be hanging from a (expletive) crane.”

Chattah lost to Ford in 2022 and previously said the expression was “tongue in cheek” and did not have “a racial context.”

She said none of the judges who wrote the letter was from Nevada or the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears federal appellate cases for Nevada.

Of the claims, she said, “I think they’re irrelevant for a judge I’ve never appeared before or practiced in front of. Most of them are in states I haven’t even been to.”

‘We’re going to hug it out’

Greg Brower, a former Nevada U.S. attorney, said it’s important for the U.S. attorney and Clark County district attorney to get along. He thinks their current spat could hurt that relationship.

“It’s unfortunate that we see some finger-pointing here,” he said.

Chattah declined to speculate on her future relationship with the district attorney’s office. Wolfson said he hopes there will be “a productive, meaningful working relationship.”

“After I learned about her social media post, I was mad, I was frustrated. I felt like I was wrongfully accused of something, and I called her and I left a message,” Wolfson said.

As of Wednesday morning, he said, Chattah had not called back.

She said Wednesday afternoon that she had called Wolfson and was waiting for a return call.

“We’re going to hug it out,” she said.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.