Lies Within Lies: The Betrayal of Nevada Judge Harry Claiborne - Hardcover

Vernetti, Michael

9781935043201: Lies Within Lies: The Betrayal of Nevada Judge Harry Claiborne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 193504320X ISBN 13: 9781935043201

Publisher: Stephens Pr Llc, 2011

The first sitting federal judge in U.S. history to be imprisoned for a crime committed while on the bench. The first federal judge impeached by Congress in a half-century. It has an ominous sound to it, conjuring images of bribes paid in alleyways, of august figures in black robes sullying their offices for sordid payoffs. And, indeed, the case against U.S. District Court Judge Harry E. Claiborne of Nevada contained those elements as the Department of Justice charged in December of 1983. Claiborne, the DOJ said, violated his office in exchange for bribes of less than $100,000 paid by brothel owner Joe Conforte. This book lays out the misguided assumptions, gullibility and malice of Claiborne's federal pursuers, and shows how they were duped. Using never-revealed information and a careful evaluation of the grand jury proceedings and two trials it took to bring Claiborne down, and an extraordinary investigation of the Justice Department's case undertaken by Nevada's Supreme Court this book challenges the reader's faith in the DOJ's ability to live up to its own name.

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About the Author:

Michael Vernetti is a former reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and was press secretary to the late U.S. Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada. His biography of Cannon was published in 2008 by the University of Nevada Press. Vernetti interviewed Claiborne in researching the Cannon biography, and felt the extraordinary aspects of the federal government's pursuit of Claiborne warranted revisiting.

Review:

"Author Michael Vernetti used interviews with surviving players and the Freedom of Information Act to dig up new information on the case (though, unsurprisingly, most federal records on the case were withheld from him), showing that federal conduct was even more sordid than was known at the time. It was not just Claiborne who was injured by the investigation." --Nevada in the West, Summer 2011

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