Central Figure Emerges in Gibbons “Cover-Up”

Evidence is piling up that Rep. Jim Gibbons’ (R-NV) campaign staff and supporters tried to hide from public view the specifics of his late-night misbehavior with cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo, as I detailed earlier. One name is consistently attached to the cover-up: Sig Rogich, a longtime Las Vegas player, GOP operative, former ambassador to Iceland and all-around powerful guy.

I’m not the only one who’s noticing this, either. “If Chrissy Mazzeo is to be believed,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday, “her claims appear to point to a wide-ranging attempted cover-up centering around Republican political guru Sig Rogich, one of the most powerful figures in Nevada, and national, politics.”

Let us count the ways it’s been suggested Rogich was involved:

Squelching the Story: “Rogich. . . tapped contacts at the Las Vegas Review-Journal,” the Las Vegas Sun reported yesterday, “where he attempted to persuade the newspaper’s publisher to kill its sketchy first story about the encounter the next day.” The paper didn’t kill the story, “but the story ran under the headline, ‘Gibbons cleared by police,’ and quoted [Sheriff] Young calling the incident ‘just a misunderstanding.'”

Circling the Wagons: Rogich called on powerful allies, including Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, whose campaign Rogich helped run four years ago. “Rogich has acknowledged talking about the charges with Young while the investigation was still open on Oct. 14,” the Review-Journal noted. Young, who oversees the Las Vegas metropolitan police investigating the matter, has endorsed Gibbons for governor.

Ordering Up the Goon Squad: “Rogich was the one who hired a private investigator to look into Mazzeo’s background when news of the allegations broke, according to the investigator, David Groover,” the Review-Journal reported. According to Mazzeo, Groover called her four days after the incident and, posing as Gibbons’ lawyer, pressured her to meet and talk “if you want this to go away.”

Cajoling the Cops: On Wednesday, Oct. 18, the police released copies of statements by Gibbons and Mazzeo. But according to Mazzeo, Groover — Gibbon’s private eye — claimed on Tuesday to have copies of both. “[Groover] represented that he had copies of the police reports in front of him on Tuesday night,” Mazzeo’s attorney Richard Wright explained in a press conference Wednesday. If the documents were cajoled out of the police department, Rogich would be a prime suspect, thanks to his direct access to the sheriff himself. (Groover has denied having advance copies of the reports.)

Misleading the Press: “In the first hours after the incident, Gibbon’s campaign” — which Rogich advises on message and communications — “in its quest to keep a lid on the incident, gave demonstrably false information to the media about what had occurred,” the Sun reported. Gibbons flacks said the incident had happened right outside the restaurant, when in fact Gibbons had followed Mazzeo into a parking garage. “Also, Gibbons’ aides said publicly that Mazzeo recanted her charge the day after the episode. She did not and has not[.]”

Hiding the Evidence: A key piece of evidence to support — or refute — Mazzeo’s claims would have been the surveillance tape from the parking garage video camera pointed at the location of her altercation with Gibbons — but it doesn’t exist, according to police. “What happened to the tapes? Why did it take more than four hours to determine whether they existed?” The Sun asked. “The parking garage. . . [is] in the Hughes Center,” it noted. “Rogich’s office is also in Hughes Center.” Sheriff Young, a Rogich ally, told the media that the cameras “were operable but weren’t working that night,” according to the paper.