District judge-elect served with grand jury subpoena

Clark County District Judge-elect Crystal Eller was served with a grand jury subpoena last week and said she believes the incumbent she defeated is behind it.

“He’s very upset about losing the election, so he just doubled down,” she said.

Eller narrowly won her race against longtime judge Bill Kephart in last month’s election. On Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Department served her with a grand jury subpoena for documents at the request of the Clark County district attorney’s office, officer Larry Hadfield said.

Lisa Mayo, Kephart’s campaign manager, refuted Eller’s claim that the sitting Department 19 judge was involved.

“That’s ridiculous. She’s just looking for any scapegoat that she can,” she said. “If the evidence is there, and the grand jury subpoenas it, then she’s going to have to deal with that.”

Eller said the subpoena is related to a lawsuit filed in October by homeowners in five states who claim she defrauded them from 2014 to 2017.

The lawsuit accuses Eller, her law office and seven other defendants of participating in a scheme that offered the plaintiffs mortgage assistance relief services, including foreclosure relief packages, and claims they “deceptively misrepresented the benefits, performance and efficacy of their services.”

In the suit, attorney Trevor Hatfield stated that Eller partnered with another company, Prodigy Fulfillment Center, which charged upward of $6,000 for a “forensic audit” and then a legal review to determine if the clients’ home loan documents had flaws that would void the mortgage.

The suit alleges that when the plaintiffs were advised that they would not be able to void their mortgage loan, Prodigy’s fraud provided Eller a catalyst to directly solicit her loan modification services.

She admits that she performed the legal reviews of the audits, but she said she did so only after two other attorneys dropped the ball, and that the most recent audit was done before she became involved.

Eller, who is representing herself in the civil case, has filed a motion requiring the 11 plaintiffs to post a bond of $500 each, and the case is on hold pending the payments.

“How can I be sued, or how can I be criminally responsible for telling somebody, ‘You got yourself into this mess, and now it’s too late, and I can’t help you?’” Eller said. “These people were about to lose their homes, and that was the most important thing to me was that I found a way to modify the loans so that they wouldn’t get foreclosed on.”

Eller claims that Kephart had the ability to orchestrate an investigation against her because of the contacts he built in the Police Department through his lengthy career as a prosecutor.

“He said I was going to be investigated months and months prior to there being any actual steps taken by law enforcement,” she said. “Why would a sitting judge who’s supposed to be minding his own business on the bench know that?”

In a Las Vegas Review-Journal debate, Kephart told voters to “watch and see what’s coming down with regards to Ms. Eller and her illegal activity involving fraud.”

Mayo said Kephart was in part referring to an April reprimand against Eller by the State Bar of Nevada and police reports that already had been filed in two other states.

According to the reprimand, Eller charged unreasonable legal fees and committed ethical violations that “could have caused potential injury to the public as well as the legal profession.”

Eller said the subpoenaed documents must be turned over by Dec. 16. She is scheduled to be sworn in as Kephart’s replacement on Jan. 4.

Contact Briana Erickson at berickson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Follow @ByBrianaE on Twitter.