Gov. Gibbons, a Friend To Defense Contractors and a Gentleman

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons (R) has had a few brushes with the law recently over vacationing with defense contractors and grabbing a woman in a parking garage. Now that federal investigators are bearing down on him over an alleged cash-for-contracts scheme, Gibbons is likely to remain in the limelight.

Federal investigators are probing former Republican House member Gibbons’ involvement with the tiny Nevada software company eTreppid Technologies. Gibbons admits he opened doors for the company, which has secured millions of dollars in defense contracts. Gibbons has, in some instances, called gifts from eTreppid appropriate because of his longtime friendship with the company’s owner Warren Trepp. Other times Gibbons has denied accepting lavish gifts. Gibbons and Trepp lived the high life together at least once on a Caribbean cruise, of which there are photos, but it’s unclear who picked up the tab. At a minimum, Gibbons has accepted $100,000 in campaign contributions from Trepp, according to disclosure records.

Trepp’s company nabbed at least a few “black-budget” contracts, which are those kept off the publicly-available Congressional budget because of their sensitive nature. Gibbons may have helped the company secure a $100 million contract last year for work with the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. eTreppid got another black-budget contract, for $3 million, to provide “target-recognition technology,” able to identify objects from streaming video. The technology would likely be beneficial in satellite surveillance.

The corruption allegations against Gibbons surfaced after a former eTreppid employee, Dennis Montgomery, sued the company saying they are wrongfully using software he created. Montgomery has given the press photos from the Caribbean cruise where, in one shot, Gibbons cradles two women and smiles along with the other nine around him. Gibbons’ wife was on the cruise, but it is unclear if she is one of the 11 women in the photo. Montgomery has said he saw his former boss give Gibbons $100,000 in cash and casino chips on the same trip.

This is not the first Nevada technology company owner Gibbons has both vacationed with in an exotic location and helped secure defense contracts for. In 2000, Gibbons went to Turkey with the owners of Sierra Nevada Corp., which has received hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts.

Sierra Nevada makes software technology used for surveillance, air traffic control, sensors, and other military operations. In 2004, Gibbons’ worked on getting the company a $4 million no-bid contract to develop a helicopter landing system that functions well in desert conditions.

Gibbons maintains that he and his wife paid for their own accommodations and airfare when they went on the week-long trip with the company’s owners, Faith and Eren Ozmen.

Gibbons’ wife, Dawn Gibbons, is also connected to the technology company. Gibbons runs a PR firm, Politek Inc., which she created in 2003 after leaving the state legislature. Coincidentally, Sierra Nevada hired her firm for $35,000 the same year it received the helicopter contract.

Dawn Gibbons’ biggest client in 2004 was her husband’s 2004 re-election campaign, which paid the firm more than $93,000. The year before, she received $18,000 from a nonprofit (Education First) that she and her husband created.

Besides dabbling in seemingly corrupt behavior, Gibbons has also been accused of even more lurid law breaking.

Last fall, then a gubernatorial candidate, Gibbons became the target of a police investigation when Chrissy Mazzeo, a waitress at a local restaurant, frantically called 911 saying he grabbed her and attempted to sexually assault her in a parking garage. Gibbons was never charged with a crime and Mazzeo says she was intimidated into keeping quiet.

Gibbons, who denies Mazzeo’s claims, said he walked the woman out of the restaurant, where they had met over drinks, and was close enough to catch her as she stumbled. He said he acted as “an officer and a gentleman.”

Strangely, when security tapes surfaced two weeks after the incident, there was no footage of the two.

So, no, he didn’t assault her, he saved her from falling, but, besides, he wasn’t even there?

Who says chivalry is dead?