New attempt planned for arson charge in Quon case

On the day it indicted attorney Nancy Quon and her ex-cop boyfriend on felony drug charges, a Clark County grand jury refused to charge the pair in a suspicious fire at her Las Vegas home.

The rare "no bill" dealt a blow to the prosecution's theory that the couple planned her death over a two-week period between Oct. 26 and Nov. 9.

Prosecutors think Quon, at the center of a separate federal investigation into fraud and corruption within homeowners associations, set the Oct. 28 fire at her Rhodes Ranch home in a botched attempt on her life.

She and her boyfriend, William Webb, also sought drugs in another scheme to kill her so she could escape the federal investigation and allow her children to collect her life insurance, authorities contend.

The grand jury declined to indict Quon on April 20 on four additional felony charges sought by prosecutors, including first-degree arson and insurance fraud, according to grand jury transcripts. The panel, which heard three months of testimony from 30 witnesses, also refused to charge Webb with conspiracy to commit arson and insurance fraud, the transcripts showed.

District Attorney David Roger declined to comment Friday on the grand jury's lack of action on the charges.

However, prosecutors intend to present the arson case to a new grand jury being impaneled next month. The current panel ends its term on May 17.

Quon's lawyer, Thomas Pitaro, blasted prosecutors for threatening to go back to the grand jury.

"A no bill is so rare that to go back and try to get another grand jury to indict would be pure vindictiveness," Pitaro said. "An impartial review of the records concerning this show there was nothing to the state's theory."

Christopher Blakesley, a UNLV law school professor who specializes in criminal law, said grand juries don't always agree with a prosecution theory of a case.

"There may have been a hole somewhere that the grand jury saw," Blakesley said. "That happens from time to time. Their purpose is to be there as a grand jury of real folks being a check on the DA."

Prosecutors laid out a timeline for the grand jury, detailing the events during the two-week period surrounding the fire that led to their theory of the suicide scheme.

Two days before the fire, Quon appeared "nervous and upset" when she provided handwriting samples to investigators in the HOA case at the U.S. attorney's office, the grand jury transcripts said.

Robert Whiteley, a detective with the Criminal Intelligence Section of the Metropolitan Police Department, told the panel that Quon's hands were shaking and that she had to leave the room briefly with Pitaro to compose herself.

When she returned, she still appeared "very upset" but gave her handwriting samples to investigators, Whiteley testified.

Quon, 51, who said she took sleeping pills and a high-alcohol energy drink before the fire, was rescued from the home by Webb's brother, Daniel, who found her unconscious on a downstairs sofa, police reports said.

Webb, 43, a former Las Vegas police officer, was out of town and had asked his brother to check on her, according to the reports.

Quon told fire investigators at the hospital that she became ill after drinking a Loko energy drink that Webb left in the refrigerator and went to bed upstairs. She said she woke up and still didn't feel well, so she lit some candles and took a bath.

When she got out of the bathtub, investigators reported, Quon took two sleeping pills and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. She awoke in the back of an ambulance.

The wealthy construction defects lawyer has denied setting the fire and trying to kill herself. Her defense team contends she had no incentive to burn down her house.

But prosecutors think that after Quon survived the fire, she and Webb looked to arrange her death using what the couple thought would be undetectable drugs.

The grand jury indicted both Quon and Webb in that scheme, which involved obtaining 29.2 grams of the club drug gamma hydroxybutyrtic acid, GHB, from undercover detectives.

Webb, who was arrested Nov. 9, was also charged in the scheme with conspiring to kill Quon.

Intelligence Detective Aaron Stanton told the grand jury that a week after Webb's arrest, Quon gave a $10,000 check to Webb's lawyer, John Momot. Stanton said Quon knew about the murder conspiracy charge against Webb at the time.

"After she was made aware of that specific charge and the details of the case," Stanton testified, "she still provided $10,000 to pay for an attorney for Webb's defense, and that stuck out because in my mind, if somebody's trying to kill me, I'm certainly not going to pay for their defense."

Momot declined comment.

The suicide scheme unfolded when Webb asked his friend Robert Justice, 45, a two-time convicted felon, to help get him the GHB, authorities said. Justice then broached the subject with one of his friends, who turned out to be an undercover detective.

Authorities said police manufactured the GHB in the department's lab and sold it to Justice and Webb. Justice faces drug and murder conspiracy charges, but he has struck a deal to plead guilty and testify against Webb and Quon.

In November, police said Quon's indictment in the federal HOA case was "imminent," but no federal charges have yet been filed.

The Review-Journal has reported that Justice Department prosecutors from Washington, D.C., have taken over the case and are working out plea deals with as many as 30 HOA investigation targets to obtain indictments against Quon and other high-level players.

The Washington attorneys also are investigating whether local federal prosecutors leaked information to Quon and other targets of the HOA probe.

Justice told the grand jury that Webb wanted to obtain the GHB before Nov. 8.

"He talked about people maybe not being in office to where he didn't have some backing or whatever," Justice testified.

Whiteley told the grand jury that Nov. 8 was the day FBI agents and detectives working the HOA probe were to have their first meeting with the Washington prosecutors taking over the case.

Whiteley said that information wasn't public knowledge and had been known for a couple of weeks by only those close to the federal investigation.

"I mean it wasn't information that was supposed to be out there, that's for sure," he told the grand jury.

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