It’s looking more and more like Gov. (but for how long) Gibbons (R) of Nevada may be in for a lot 
of trouble.
Gibbons, you’ll remember, gave up his House seat in 2006 just ahead of a federal investigation into whether he “accepted unreported gifts or payments” from a defense contractor who got secret contracts with Gibbons assistance. He gave up his seat to run for governor. But just to up the scandal ante at home, not long before election day, he followed a cocktail waitress, Chrissy Mazzeo, back to a parking garage where, she alleged, he attempted to sexually assault her.
The whole subject became drawn out and messy and picked up several plot twists right out of an Elmore Leonard novel. To make a long story short, Gibbons and Co. eventually made the whole thing go away — but not without plenty of signs and not a little evidence that local pols, law enforcement and wealthy pals went to heroic and goonish efforts to help their friend beat the rap. For some of the gory and clownish details see Justin Rood’s coverage of the 
story from late 2006 in our TPMmuckraker Gibbons’ file.
But now it looks like Gibbons’ chickens, and more importantly his philandering, might be coming home to roost. Gibbons is now involved in a nasty and protracted divorce battle with his wife — one that escalated dramatically after he took the bold step of trying to have his estranged wife evicted from governor’s mansion. Dawn Gibbons has hired attorney Charles Dunlap, who seems to have a reputation for liking to fight his cases in the press. And Dunlap is pushing to unseal the court documents relating to the divorce.
But the real news comes in a post today from Justin Rood (now of ABCNews.com’s The Blotter). Dawn Gibbons is now more or less openly threatening to air Gibbons’ dirty laundry on all his sundry scandals. According to Rood, in a recent filing Dawn Gibbons claimed the public was “misled” about the Mazzeo incident by Gibbons’ “handlers, spinmeisters and staff.” And her lawyer, Dunlap, is hinting that she might have stories to tell about the earmarks and bribery investigation too.
It’s looking like a lot of muck is going to be coming down the pike in Nevada. And luckily, as of Monday we’ll again be fully staffed at TPMmuckraker. So we’ll be ready.
