They Came To Rob Las Vegas

7 of Nevada politicians' most memorable excuses

Thursday, June 30, 2011 | 2 a.m.

CARSON CITY — If it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup that gets politicians into trouble. But it’s often the excuses that are more memorable than the sin.

Former Assemblyman Morse “Moose” Arberry was hit last week with six felony charges accusing him of lying on campaign finance statements. Unrelated to that news, he once provided one of the more honest and revealing answers by a Nevada politician in recent memory. It came last year as he tried to explain why he was soliciting a public lobbying contract while still a sitting assemblyman.

“You have to hit things while the iron is hot,” he said.

Arberry has company among Nevada politicos who have provided memorable excuses to explain their actions or to deflect criticism. Some were innocent, some weren’t. But they all got a laugh.

Arberry formed lobbying firm Titan Partners on June 21, 2010, while he was still chairman of the powerful Assembly Ways and Means Committee. He ignored the mandated cooling-off period for legislators to lobby their former colleagues, landing a $100,000 lobbying contract with Clark County judges.

When the deal caused controversy, Arberry explained that law or not, he didn’t believe in cooling-off periods.

“I think you have to hit things while the iron is hot,” he said. “For 25 years I served in the Legislature and in public, and I bring relationships and a lot of knowledge to the table. A cooling-off period hinders an individual. Momentum you have is lost because then you’re not involved in the field.”

It was 1997, a golden age for political corruption in Las Vegas. In October, the Clark County Commission voted to award airport contracts, reserved for disadvantaged businesses, to folks who just happened to be close friends of commissioners.

Then-Commissioner Lance Malone didn’t disclose his friendship with one of the contract recipients. He said he hadn’t recognized the name of one of the recipients, who was a friend of his wife’s.

“I didn’t know it was that Gay Reber,” Malone said, according to the Associated Press. “Had I known it was the same Gay Reber, I would have disclosed and said my wife knows her.”

In 2009, as lawmakers debated bills during a floor session, a legislative police officer spotted Assemblyman Ed Goedhart, R-Amargosa Valley, viewing naked women dancing on his computer screen, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

JettisonCocoon: Film Review: They Came To Rob Las Vegas

The plot, which is far more complex than your average B-movie, has a group of thieves taking down an armoured car that ferries cash from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. But this is no ordinary armoured car; it's a Skorsky armoured car which means it's built to be invulnerable to attack. It even has remote controlled machine guns to dissuade attackers. Tony, the leader of the gang, has the edge on Skorsky because his girlfriend, Ann, is Mr Skorsky's personal (very) assistant, and can tell him the route the car is taking. The attack on the armoured car goes down without a hitch, but things quickly go pear-shaped from there, and Tony, the anti-hero of the film, has to scramble to keep the money and his life. What really makes this film work is the look of it. European directors of this period loved the chance to work with big, wide open spaces. Just look at Sergio Leone. In this case the director, Antonio Isasi, is shooting in Las Vegas and the Spanish desert (doubling for Nevada), and he clearly relishes the chance to move men and machines around in vast landscapes. The shot composition is always first rate, as is some of the location work in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The highlight of the film is the seizure of the armoured car in the desert. It's a complicated sequence involving many moving parts and it is, without a doubt, a brilliant combination of cinematography and editing. It should be shown in every film school. a great film? No, of course not. The acting is sometimes laughable, the dialogue is clunky, and some sequences (the Las Vegas strip by night) appear to have been filmed from the back seat of a cab. What this film does have is insolence, energy, a surprisingly intricate plot, dynamic action sequences, and a fun vulgarity that makes it not just a B-movie, but a cult B-movie. If you want it, you'll have to order it online from the Warner Archive Collection.

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