WHAT A DIFFERENCE LEADERSHIP MAKES; THE WYNN KIDNAPPING CASE VS THE CLIVEN BUNDY DEBACLE – A STUDY IN STARK CONTRAST
Dateline: New Year’s Day, 2018
I read the news today. Oh boy.
The Top Ten Las Vegas stories of 2017, per the Las Vegas Review Journal, were a disturbing and dismal lot. Included were the Route 91 Festival/Mandalay Bay massacre, the deadliest in U.S. history – on the Las Vegas Strip; a school district budget crisis; numerous incidents of sexual abuse in those same schools; and… the Bundy trials.
When an “unravelling” prosecution makes it into the year’s biggest stories – all bad – we’re in trouble.
“Back in my day….”.
I know how that sounds. But 15 years ago, the Las Vegas U.S, Attorney’s Office made lots of headlines – 99% of them positive. There was Myer Blinder, Harry Whittenburg, the DuPont Murder, Brady-Mortensen, Harrah’s, and…the Wynn kidnaping – and many, many others. All resounding successes.
So I just couldn’t help to compare and contrast the case from then to now (see previous article re: Bundy.)
The Top 10 Stories of 1993 led off with the opening or three new Vegas mega-resorts:
#2 was the Kevyn Wynn kidnapping/extortion. Once we took care of business in that matter, the following year’s Vegas “Winners and Losers”, per Jeff German of the Las Vegas Sun, led off with the perpetrator who foolishly went to trial, rather than accepting a reasonable plea offer.
I’ll have more to say about this following District Court Judge Gloria Navarro’s ruling on the defense motion for dismissal after (yet another) mistrial in the Bundy fiasco, for numerous WILLFUL discovery violations.
For now, I pity the prosecutor(s) who have screwed up innumerable high profile cases over the years under the woeful “supervision” of Dan Bogden and Steve Myhre. I would venture to say that the vestiges of their ignominious era will soon be eradicated, by DOJ.
