A series of e-mails and letters to and from the Gaming Commission appears to confirm White Pine County Commissioner Gary Perea contention that he was given a choice by gaming investigators to either resign his office and withdraw from reelection or pay $18,000 for waiver to continue his political career.
The correspondence obtained by the Advocate begin in July and end in mid October shortly after Perea publicly announced that he was withdrawing from the race and resigning from the commission.
Click link Gaming Letters
Three weeks after those fateful actions Perea was notified that he did not have to resign and could seek reelection by the Gaming Control board.
Perea revived his campaign but with less than two weeks before the election and with early voting all but completed the damage proved fatal. He lost last Tuesday by over five percentage points.
But while investigators told Perea one thing, their boss Frank Streshley said quite another in an interview with the High Desert Advocate last week.
“All Mr. Perea has to do is not to be apart of the operations at his property that would conflict with his being on the county commission.” Streshley said.
Perea confirmed that as of last week he also had been told that he no longer needed to either resign or to withdraw from the upcoming election.
“I was told that all I needed was a letter from our district attorney that I was not in violation,” he said somewhat confusedly.
When interviewed again Wednesday, Streshley insisted that Perea resignation and withdrawal were mostly of Perea own making and implied the white Pine Commissioner perhaps over reacted.
The correspondence how suggests that Perea was acting in accordance to and under the advice of gaming agent Jason Molitz rom Las Vegas.
One of the most active White Pine Commissioners Perea was one of a handful of reformers that brought the county out of bankruptcy eight years ago and back into solvency. He also led the fight against the Las Vegas water grab and several sources speculated that the sudden interest in his 40 slot machines was politically motivated by the Las Vegas dominated Gaming control Board.
While any direct links between the SNWA and the gaming investigation have yet to be found the nature and the timing of the investigation has certainly raised eye brows in White Pine County.
First elected in 2004 Perea has had to undergo yearly audits by gaming investigators who knew of his political position as a White Pine County Commissioner. With his name on the county letter head his employment on record with the state Perea made no attempt to hide either where he worked or what he owned.
Both Assemblymen John Ellison and Pete Goichochea said they would call for and support a full scale investigation of the Gaming Control board and give special attention to any relationship official or unofficial of the SNWA.
“I think it stinks,” Ellison said. “And if there is SNWA involvement heads might role.”
It would not be surprising if there were casual connection between the two agencies.
The public government workforce in the state often includes spouses or family members. It is not uncommon for instance to have a wife working as a professor in a university with a husband serving in city, state, or county government in another capacity.
The issue in an investigation into the Perea affair would be if someone at the SNWA influenced the investigation into Perea with the goal of destroying the political career of one of its chief opponents.
“I would hope this can be chalked up to incompetence,” Goichochea said. “If it is corruption it is another story.”
