Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, pctured above, has declined to prosecute former Boulder City, Nevada Police Chief Thomas Finn for covering his tracks during the Mongols national run.
Finn exploited his opportunity to bully the Mongols when the club came to Finn’s town south of Las Vegas last June. He assembled a police force of at least 250 sworn officers and game planned the greeting he would offer the club. Two weeks before the event, Finn emailed Municipal Court Judge Victor Miller and City Attorney Dave Olsen: “There will be several dozen law enforcement agencies working in BC this weekend for the Mongols event. We are taking a zero tolerance approach with them and all the agencies will be citing them into our municipal court of ordinance violations, traffic violations and other misdemeanors. Is there a specific date you want us to use for a court appearance?
“Also, as part of our zero tolerance approach, all the law enforcement agencies have asked if our court and prosecutor would consider ‘no deals’ when the misdemeanors are adjudicated. Doing so would make it clear to the ‘Mongol Miscreants’ that Boulder City does not tolerate bad behavior.”
Fire Up The Shredders
Finn then ordered the city-wide cover-up which Wolfson just declared to be legal. In an email sent to 31 city employees, Finn wrote: “Lieutenant Albowicz made an excellent suggestion to have all emails related to the preparations we are making for the Mongols event deleted from our computers. If they submit a records request for them it would obviously show our hand and divulge the strategies and staffing levels we need to keep confidential. Therefore please delete any and all emails related to the event immediately.”
After learning that Finn had ordered employees to destroy public documents in order to frustrate a “records request,” Stephen Stubbs, the Mongols attorney, asked Wolfson and the Boulder City Council to investigate Finn.
The confrontation between Stubbs and Finn eventually led to Finn’s termination as Boulder City Chief last week.
No Intent
Wolfson said Tuesday that he thinks Finn intended to prevent the “accidental distribution” of “sensitive information” but did not intend to destroy public records.
The same day Finn told Las Vegas television reporter George Knapp “I’ve said all along that I did nothing wrong and that I did my job, which was to keep the city safe. I knew in my heart and mind that I did not break any laws.”
Knapp, who has become an apologist for Finn in the last month, reported that Finn was “buoyed by the news.”