Clark County commissioner lied about missing texts, judge says

Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, seen in March 2022. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones, seen in March 2022. (Las Vegas Review-Journal).
Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones wasn't truthful about erasing important text messages from his phone in a long-running legal disagreement over development on Blue Diamond Hill, a federal magistrate judge has ruled.

On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elayna Youchah granted designer James Rhodes' Gypsum Resources LLC attorney costs for the time it took to bring the movement for sanctions against Jones, however rejected a demand to report him to the Nevada State Bar for misbehavior.

Rather, the judge stated Gypsum Resources might submit a Bar grievance, according to the 42-page order.

" I have actually evaluated the order and I have no additional comments while the lawsuits is pending," Jones wrote to the Review-Journal in a text message. "I continue to remain focused on serving the requirements of my constituents and working to make Clark County a much better place to live, raise a family and work.".

Missing out on texts.

Youchah's order concerns the deletion of all text sent and gotten from Jones' phone prior to an essential vote in 2019 that postponed a questionable suggested housing project neglecting Red Rock Canyon.

" The totality of the proof provided leaves little doubt that the disappearance of all texts from Mr. Jones' phone was not an unidentifiable aberration of electronic devices or some other unknown accident, but the result of a purposeful act that, as Clark County says, was ‘‘ knowingly done against [County] policy,'" Youchah composed in the order. "The Court can find no logical - - even if not likely - explanation for what took place to Mr. Jones' texts besides the frustrating description that Mr. Jones deleted his texts stressed the disclosure would yield a undesirable or negative outcome for him.".

The judgment includes: "All in all, Jones' statement as a Clark County Commissioner, a lawyer with shown familiarity with litigation and the requirement to preserve proof, a lawyer who had prosecuted with Gypsum for two years before becoming Commissioner, and an attorney who comprehended his independent obligations to be sincere when under oath at deposition, appears to have thoroughly chosen words that were not out-and-out misstatements, but also were not truthful.".

Youchah decreased to sanction Clark County for accusations that it did not protect documents related to the proposed job, which later on caused the litigation for breach of contract.

" Whether the County ‘‘ need to have understood' Gypsum would submit a claim declaring constitutional offenses is again something that might have happened, however that it must have occurred to the County is too far for this Court to support," she composed.

Vote against job.

The unanimous April 2019 vote to deny a waiver to advance Rhodes' development - - which county personnel had actually advised approving before altering course after Jones took office earlier that year - - doomed the 3,000-home project.

As a private citizen and lawyer, Jones represented the Save Red Rock preservation group that opposed the project, submitted a claim against it and ran his campaign for the commission seat on stopping the advancement, according to the order.

Lawyers for Rhodes declared that Jones traded prefers with Steve Sisolak throughout the 2018 campaign when Sisolak was the chairman of the county commission and running for guv.

The deal involved Sisolak coming out against the development in exchange for the conservation group dropping the lawsuit against the county and backing the future guv, according to court files.

When Jones could not right away reach Sisolak's project that October, he regreted in an e-mail: "Well, I'm doing my part.

Days later, Sisolak revealed he wasn't supporting the task and assisted postpone a commission vote till after 2 new commissioners took office. One of those brand-new commissioners was Jones.

Save Red Rock then dismissed the lawsuit and backed the future governor's project.

" At his deposition, Mr. Jones confessed the offer he struck with Commissioner Sisolak had ‘‘ worth,' that Commissioner Sisolak utilized language comparable to language Jones prepared when launching his public statement, which Commissioner Sisolak did what (Save Red Rock) and Jones wanted him to do," the court order stated.

Rhodes has stated the waiver rejection cost him millions of dollars and sent his company into bankruptcy.

He intends to build master-planned neighborhoods at his mine and in October cleared a substantial difficulty for the first phase of the job. The county zoning commission voted all to accept a tentative map of the job, however enforced conditions.

A Gypsum Resources spokesperson said the business was still evaluating Youchah's order which it would comment even more "at a later time.".

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow @rickytwrites on Twitter.

Plaster Resources v. Clark County by Steve Sebelius on Scribd.