Letter: Judge made political rulings in some cases

I write this letter in response to Jeff Ackerman's editorial on the retiring of Judge Fondi.

I, too, believe that Carson City is losing a good jurist. However, even though I believe that Judge Fondi is one of the brightest legal minds I have ever encountered, he has, in my view, one very serious failing. Judge Fondi sometimes made political decisions as opposed to legal ones. I spoke to Jeff about this because of his article. His reply to me was that, "He ruled in your favor against popular opinion."

I take issue with Jeff's position, in that Jeff does not define whose popular opinion. It most certainly was not popular with John and James Bustamonte or Rod Banister, Noel Waters, Ann Langer and Robey Willis, all of whom have protected the Bustamonte brothers from felony crimes committed here in Carson City. Judge Fondi, in my view, made a political decision and not a legal one when he protected Waters, Langer and Banister from my removal action.

He did this by failing to give you and me a hearing as mandated by law. Rather he simply dismissed it. What is so amazing to me is that after Banister and company were politically protected by Fondi in the state's removal action that I brought against them, Banister calls Fondi on the phone and accuses him of taking a bribe from me when Fondi followed the law and dismissed Langer's complaint against me.

If "stupid conduct" was a criteria for being removed from office, Banister, in my view, achieved it. What Banister and most people here in Carson City are and have been unaware of is that while removal actions were going on here in Carson City, Judge Fondi had already been appointed by the Supreme Court to hear another removal complaint against then Churchill County District Attorney Kevin Pasqually.

There Judge Fondi gave the people a hearing and was about to remove Pasqually from office when Pasqually filed an untimely (as found by the Supreme Court) oral writ of prohibition stopping the proceedings. Once the Supreme Court denied Pasqually's writ, Judge Fondi was free to remove him. But because my case against Carson City public officials was even stronger than the case against Pasqually, Judge Fondi in an effort to comport with his political decision to protect Carson City public officials had little choice but to let Pasqually off the hook and not remove him.

What Pasqually had done during his tenure as district attorney was take a side job as Indian tribal judge even though to do so is prohibited by state law. To make matters even worse, Pasqually's assistant district attorney Bruce Matley took on the job as tribal prosecutor, leaving the unsuspecting Indian coming before their court a stacked deck of monumental proportions.

While I believe that Judge Fondi is a good jurist, in my book these two examples of political decisions as opposed to the many legal ones he has made have tarnished his record to the point that it precludes him from being the great jurist which he most certainly had the potential to be.

Judge Fondi leaves his office leaving the people, both in Carson City and Churchill County, with unscrupulous public officials that the people whom he swore to protect must now contend. At present I am very close to having enough signatures on our petition mandating that a grand jury be impaneled in Carson City to investigate the criminal conduct of John and James Bustamonte, thereby seeking criminal indictments of them as well as that of Noel Waters, Ann Langer, Robey Willis and anyone else who is found through that investigation to have protected them.

ROLLAND WEDDELL

Carson City