Trial of brothel owner postponed
Conflicting schedules prompted a federal judge to postpone the August trial for Pahrump brothel owner Joe Richards, who is accused of trying to bribe members of the Nye County Commission.
Leo Flangas, one of Richards’ attorneys, will be out of town in August and September. Flangas’s co-counsel, Tom Pitaro, has two jury trials in October, according to court documents.
Judge Robert Jones rescheduled the trial for Nov. 20.
According to court documents, Richards is accused of paying $5,000 to commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell under the guise that the money was a scholarship to Boyd Law School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Trummell was working with the federal government, secretly recording Richards between June and November 2005.
In return for the payments, “Richards obtained, and attempted to obtain, CW’s (cooperating witness’s) assistance in changing a Nye County Ordinance that imposed a land use restriction that prevented him from building a brothel on property he owns near the town of Pahrump in Nye County,” FBI Special Agent David Linterman wrote in the complaint filed against Richards.
The ordinance prevented construction of a brothel within 300 yards of road or highway frontages. In a conversation recorded by the government, Richards asked Trummell for her assistance in rewriting the ordinance.
