A Las Vegas jury, Friday, convicted two former politicians of taking bribes from a strip club owner and for other related charges.
Former Clark County commissioners Dario Herrera, 32, and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, 67, were found guilty of conspiracy, wire fraud and extortion under the guise of official authority, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Because they were convicted on federal charges, the two face more than 45 years in prison when they are sentenced on Aug. 21.
Attorneys for the pair said they would file an appeal.
Jurors spent six weeks on the case, watching surveillance videotapes, listening to FBI wiretaps and hearing testimony from a string of witnesses, including strippers, law enforcement officials and others who told about Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey taking bribes.
Prosecutor Daniel Bogden told the jury of wiretaps showing Cheetah’s strip club owner Michael Galardi bribing three members of the four-member Clark County Commission between 1999 and 2003.
Galardi, who pleaded guilty to political corruption charges involving his clubs in Las Vegas and San Diego, cooperated with prosecutors in the case. He is facing up to five years in prison in the two cases.
Three clubs owned by Galardi, Cheetah’s in San Diego and Cheetah’s and Jaguars in Las Vegas – were raided last May by the FBI who were investigating allegations of illegal payoffs and bribes of public officials by the strip club mogul, who along with former county Commissioner Erin Kenny, last fall cut a deal to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Prosecutors contended that Galardi paid Herrera and Kincaid-Chauncey several thousand dollars a month, beginning in 2000 in exchange for their votes on strip club regulations. Herrera is alleged to have received a $30,000 payment from Galardi in 2001 after Herrera and his wife divorced.
Prosecutors also accused Herrera of accepting sexual favors from Galardi’s dancers at the same time.
Kincaid-Chauncey was said to have $5,000 a month from Galardi, beginning in 2001.
But Herrera’s attorney Jerry Bernstain complained that the government’s evidence is simple hearsay by Galardi himself and one-time Galardi associate and political consultant Lance Malone, claiming other evidence was circumstantial.
The two defendants’ lawyers accused the government of buying Galardi’s and Malone’s testimonies by cutting deals for lesser sentences.
