Senator who vouched for rapist can’t defend own flawed character

Attorneys and journalists love to ask those "were you lying then or are you lying now?" questions.

State Sen. Dennis Nolan told a Las Vegas woman it would be "very financially beneficial" to change her story and "tell the truth" about the rape of her then 16-year-old sister by her then-husband. Now he says that was something he "made up."

Gee. What is politically better for a Nevada legislator? Is it better to be thought a liar? Or is it better to be seen as offering a bribe? Choices, choices.

Faced with two lousy choices in a miserable situation of his own making, Nolan went with the option where he looks like a liar.

Nolan was elected in 1994 to the Assembly, then in 2002 to the Senate. He's a former paramedic and currently a commercial real estate agent. But he should consider a career in construction work. He's proved he knows how to dig a deep hole, then pour cement in, while he stands there, sinking.

With today's conservative climate among Republicans, Nolan might have lost his re-election bid in the GOP primary anyway. Many Republicans viewed him as too liberal. He was the swing vote in the passage of a domestic partnership bill in 2009 and his past tax votes provided political fodder for his Senate District 9 primary challenger Elizabeth Halseth.

Halseth is a 27-year-old executive assistant. She began airing radio ads on May 17 in which Tim Anderson, the father of the rape victim, says, "What kind of a person defends a child rapist who sexually assaults our kids?"

Nolan is savvy enough to realize something like this would be coming when he put his reputation on the line and testified in 2008 as a character witness for Gordon Lawes.

Nolan believes his hockey player pal, who said the sex was consensual. Jurors didn't believe him, which is why Lawes is serving a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. The prosecution's case was that in 2004 Lawes had been sleeping with his wife, the victim's sister, then came downstairs naked and raped the sister while she was "passed out drunk." Lawes was 22 at the time, the same age as the victim today.

Nolan has consistently focused on the angle that 16 is the age of consent and he believes the girl consented.

Even if that's true, women I've talked to find distasteful Nolan's position it's OK for adult men to have sex with 16-year-olds, including their wives' sisters. It's wrong on multiple levels.

After the radio ads began running, Nolan evolved into a mini-version of an undercover cop. He admits he called the victim's sister, Jamie Anderson Lawes. A smarter man would have just asked her to return the call.

However, Nolan left a voice mail message saying, "There's a lot of people who have a serious interest in this campaign and what's going on and I think that it could be very financially beneficial for you to consider telling the truth." He refers to people who have "resources."

Now he's saying that's not a bribe offer. Instead, he was going to try to get the older sister to meet with him while he was wearing a wire so he could tape whatever she said.

Instead, the voice mail message ended up in Halseth's hands as a political sledgehammer.

Nolan should start working on his concession speech for June 8 because he's just made one stupid blunder after another.

Standing by his friend was not his fatal error. But the poor judgment he's demonstrated while trying to minimize the political impact of that decision shows a flawed character.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.