Federal probe into valley HOAs broadens

Federal prosecutors have identified 75 to 100 co-conspirators, including judges, attorneys and former police officers, at various levels of a massive fraud scheme involving Las Vegas Valley home­owners associations, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has learned.

Some 25 to 30 targets of the investigation are taking plea deals that will ensure their cooperation in the prosecution of as many as two dozen high-level players in the scheme.

Some of the plea deals will be finalized in meetings with prosecutors from the Justice Department's Fraud Section Tuesday and Wednesday at the FBI's Las Vegas field office. Prosecutors expect to seek grand jury indictments against the high-level players in coming weeks.

The long-running investigation appears to be entering a new phase at the hands of the Justice Department lawyers from Washington, D.C., who recently took over the case.

The shift came in part because of suspicion that the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas had stalled the investigation.

The fraud investigation became public 2½ years ago with raids of law firms, HOA offices and businesses across the Las Vegas Valley.

FBI agents reportedly seized records related to a scheme to rig homeowner association board elections to position conspirators, including former police officers, who would push the boards to file construction defect lawsuits against builders.

Legal work and multimillion-dollar repair contracts then would be funneled to associated lawyers and companies.

The Washington-based prosecutors have arranged the plea agreement meetings away from the U.S. attorney's office, where prosecutors are themselves under criminal investigation, suspected of leaking information to suspects.

The leaks, being investigated separately by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, might have allowed one of the HOA targets, construction defects attorney Nancy Quon, to alter or destroy evidence sought by investigators.

FBI agents assigned to the leak investigation have interviewed at least one federal prosecutor close to Quon, and are examining the conduct of others for potential obstruction of justice charges.

Sources said the obstruction of justice investigation reportedly goes beyond the U.S. attorney's office to include prominent officials who might have passed along confidential information to Quon.

Her political connections and friends in the Las Vegas legal community include several judges.

Officials at the FBI, the U.S. attorney's office and the Justice Department wouldn't comment on the HOA investigation.

Quon, whose law office was searched in the September 2008 homeowner association raids, also is at the center of another criminal investigation by Las Vegas police.

Her live-in boyfriend, former Las Vegas police officer William Ronald Webb, in November was charged in a scheme to arrange her death using undetectable illegal drugs so that he and her family could collect life insurance money.

Detectives suspect Quon was involved in the death plot while under intense federal scrutiny in the HOA investigation.

The lawyer, who once reportedly brought in $100 million through construction defect lawsuits for homeowner associations, has denied planning her own death.

A retired Las Vegas police officer committed suicide after his name surfaced in the investigation. Christopher Van Cleef shot himself a few days after the HOA raids.

Another central figure in the HOA investigation, former Las Vegas Police Lt. Ben Kim, retired last year as the investigation continued to attract headlines.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.