Revised license suspension for ex-prosecutor sent to high court
A Nevada State Bar disciplinary board has recommended an 18-month suspension for Kenneth W. Long, a former North Las Vegas prosecutor convicted of elder abuse in 2007.
The Bar's Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board previously called on the state Supreme Court to suspend Long only for six months, a sanction agreed to by Long, but the court rejected that proposed punishment as too light.
"That doesn't happen very often," said Assistant Bar Counsel Phil Pattee.
If the Supreme Court follows the board's latest recommendation, Long's suspension would be retroactive to March, when the State Bar temporarily suspended his law license.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue an order on Long's case in the coming months.
Long, 39, who couldn't be reached for comment, is willing to accept an 18-month suspension, Bar records show.
He pleaded no contest in August 2007 to a gross misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit elder abuse stemming from his involvement in a scheme to defraud an 89-year-old woman out of her home. He was fined $2,000.
The victim, Doris Cossovel, is the grandmother of Ronald Mortensen, a former Las Vegas police officer serving a life sentence for a 1997 drive-by-shooting of a man outside his home.
Long, a former FBI agent, befriended Mortensen while Mortensen was in the Clark County Detention Center awaiting an appeal hearing.
Both men were charged with wresting ownership of a California beach home from Cossovel, who was living in a Las Vegas senior-care facility. The home became security for a loan obtained by a jailhouse friend of Mortensen.
The FBI and Las Vegas police investigated whether the loan money was part of a plot by Mortensen and Long to bribe the Clark County judge scheduled to hear Mortensen's appeal of his murder conviction.
The Review-Journal reported last year that the investigation collapsed after Long was videotaped in a hotel room with Mortensen's jailhouse friend, who was acting as a police informant. The men met to exchange $40,000, but Long left the room without the money.
Contact reporter Alan Maimon at amaimon@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0404.
