Judge approves evidentiary hearing in alleged wiretap

LAS VEGAS - A judge has set a June 30 hearing on allegations that Las Vegas Metropolitan Police conducted an unlawful wiretap on the telephone line of the attorney for developer Bill Walters.

District Judge Mark Gibbons said Metro ''doesn't need this cloud hanging over its head'' and he wants to review the issue as soon as possible.

Walters, a professional gambler and developer of golf courses, was charged with three other men in an indictment a Clark County grand jury returned in November.

Prosecutors contend the men participated in a conspiracy to place illegal bets with illegal bookmakers in New York and then transport the winnings back to Nevada.

Earlier this month, Walters attorney Richard Wright produced a brief audiotape of Las Vegas police Secret Witness Director Russ White asking his secretary about a wiretap.

''It must be from one of the attorneys' offices ... that they're doing on Billy Walters,'' White can be heard saying on the tape.

In court Wednesday, Wright said the tape came from the answering machine of Las Vegas attorney JoNell Thomas, who is representing one of Walters' co-defendants.

Wright said one of the multiple telephone lines on Thomas' answering machine recorded the conversation while she was talking on a different line.

Deputy Attorney General David Thompson denied that police were conducting a wiretap. He said the telephone lines were crossed because of a technical glitch in Sprint's main switching building.

''The police had nothing to do with it,'' he told Gibbons.

Thompson opposed Wright's request for an evidentiary hearing and called his allegations ''groundless and irresponsible.''

Gibbons said he thinks the recorded conversation resulted from a ''bizarre coincidence'' but said White's comment on the tape raised questions.