Las Vegas Justice Court candidate faces ethics complaint

A complaint has been filed with the Nevada Commission on Ethics against a public defender running for Las Vegas justice of the peace.

The complaint alleges that Rebecca Saxe sent an email on Sept. 22 soliciting campaign donations from her Clark County email address, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Saxe, who has served as a deputy public defender for the past 10 years, is running against incumbent Suzan Baucum in the upcoming general election for the Department 13 seat in Justice Court.

The email Saxe sent references Baucum, who has overseen DUI cases in Justice Court, and Chief Deputy District Attorney Danielle “Pieper” Chio, who is running for justice of the peace in Department 9.

“As you may or may not know, Baucum is actively working on getting assigned back to the DUI track,” the email states, according to a copy obtained by the Review-Journal. “And if she wins (and Danielle Pieper wins), she is going to get her wish. I know you all know how bad that would be for you and for our clients.”

In an emailed statement, Saxe said the email solicitation was “inadvertently” sent from her work account instead of her campaign account. Saxe said she has not violated ethics rules and is “confident an investigation will demonstrate that.”

“Like many of us today, I receive and send emails on my iPhone and have multiple email accounts,” Saxe wrote. “I do not remember the circumstances of how this email was sent, but if I once sent an email from the wrong account in the course of a 9 month-long campaign, it was accidental.”

‘Taxpayer resources’

Baucum’s campaign manager, Tom Letizia, said the complaint shows that Saxe “will not be fair and unbiased if elected.”

“I don’t know how many laws she has broken here,” Letizia said in an emailed statement. “She is using taxpayer resources for her campaign. Then she asks defense lawyers for money and promises to go easy on their DUI defendants.”

Chio declined to comment on the complaint through Letizia, who is also managing her campaign.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Ross Armstrong said complaints filed with the commission are not public records until a review panel determines if there is “just and sufficient cause” for the commission to render an opinion on the complaint. Once a complaint is submitted, the commission has 45 days to determine if it has jurisdiction and if the complaint requires an investigation, Armstrong said.

Political consultant Lisa Mayo-DeRiso said she filed the complaint on Monday with the commission, after she was sent Saxe’s email anonymously. Mayo-DeRiso is not working on Baucum or Chio’s campaigns, she said.

Mayo-DeRiso said the email violates laws prohibiting public employees from using government time or property for personal benefit. The complaint also alleges that Saxe used her position as a Clark County employee to get access to people who would be in a position to donate to her campaign

“You can’t be elected to apply the law if you can’t follow the law,” Mayo-DeRiso said.

‘Diversion tactic’

The copy of the email sent to the Review-Journal did not show who received Saxe’s email solicitation.

In the email, Saxe wrote that she’s been doing everything in her power to win, and that she wanted to reach 230,000 voters through text messages and online ads before early voting, which began Oct. 22.

“All of this, of course, takes money,” the email states. “I am writing to ask if you would be willing to donate to my campaign?”

Saxe also wrote in the email that she has pulled endorsements from Baucum. In her statement sent to the Review-Journal, Saxe said the complaint was a “diversion tactic” after Baucum lost endorsements.

On Tuesday, the Culinary union announced that is was rescinding a joint endorsement of Baucum and Saxe, and is now only endorsing Saxe for the general election. The Hispanics in Politics group also rescinded an endorsement for Baucum, according to a Facebook post from Wednesday morning.

Culinary Local 226 stated that it was rescinding Baucum’s endorsement following a social media post that showed Baucum and other judicial candidates posing with Republican gubernatorial nominee Joe Lombardo and holding Lombardo’s campaign signs. In the union’s statement, the group called Lombardo a “threat to workers and our value.”

“As the largest organization of workers in Nevada, we will continue to elect political leaders who will protect Nevadans, and so the Culinary Union is supporting Rebecca Saxe in a sole endorsement,” the union stated.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.