Paramedics say lawyer Quon found unconscious had overdosed

Newly released grand jury transcripts have deepened the mystery of whether Las Vegas lawyer Nancy Quon tried to kill herself to escape the pressure of a federal investigation into fraud and corruption at homeowners associations.

Paramedics at the scene of a suspicious house fire that nearly killed Quon, a key target in the massive federal probe, concluded she overdosed on drugs, according to the transcripts.

Also, fire and insurance investigators testified they found two origins of the fire, leading them to suspect arson and question Quon's version of events.

The wealthy construction-defects lawyer denied setting the October fire in a botched scheme to kill herself, and the county grand jury last month refused to charge her with arson and insurance fraud.

However, the panel did indict Quon, 51, and her live-in boyfriend, former Las Vegas police officer William Ronald Webb, in a separate suicide scheme to obtain a drug the couple thought was undetectable.

County prosecutors plan to take the fire case to a new grand jury in hopes of securing an indictment.

That drew a strong rebuke from Quon's lawyer, Thomas Pitaro.

"The only reason anyone would attempt to go back on the state of this evidence would either be pure vindictiveness or an attempt to bail out the insurance companies," he said.

In more than 1,200 pages of grand jury transcripts, 30 witnesses revealed new details about the fire, Quon's state of mind and her dramatic rescue from the smoldering, two-story home by her brother-in-law.

Webb's older brother, Daniel Webb, a veteran corrections officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, testified that he went to Quon's house Oct. 28 at his brother's request. William Webb, who was in San Diego, asked his brother to visit the Rhodes Ranch home when he couldn't reach Quon on the phone.

Police believe William Webb, 43, went out of town to create an alibi in the suicide plot.

Daniel Webb walked into the smoke-filled home and frantically called out Quon's name while he searched for her upstairs and downstairs. At times he was on his cellphone with his brother and was nearly overcome by smoke.

"I start to panic," Daniel Webb testified. "I tell my brother that his house is on fire, 'Do you think Nancy is home?' I'm sure I'm a psychological mess at the time. I'm asking, 'My God, your house is on fire, Ron. Do you think Nancy's in the house?' "

Daniel Webb told the grand jury his brother didn't know if Quon was there.

Eventually, Daniel Webb found Quon unconscious, wrapped in a soaking wet blanket, on an overstuffed couch in the first-floor family room, the transcripts show. Water had been spraying down from second-floor pipes that burst in the heat.

Coughing and gagging from the smoke, Daniel Webb carried Quon outside and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived and took over.

'NARCOTIC OVERDOSE'

Robert Plott, a Clark County Fire Department paramedic, told the grand jury that Quon was unresponsive, was breathing slowly and had pupils the size of pinpoints. All were typical signs of a "narcotic overdose," he said.

Plott testified he injected Quon with Narcan, a drug that counteracts the effects of an opiate overdose, and within a minute her breathing improved to the point she no longer needed assistance.

American Medical Response paramedic Christopher Phillips noted in his medical report that Quon had overdosed.

Quon's lawyer called the overdose claims "bogus" and "unfair."

"What we have here is a bunch of testimony that she had an opiate overdose, when everyone knows she had no opiates in her system," Pitaro said. "The hospital tested her for opiates and it came up negative."

The tests showed she had prescription medication in her system, Pitaro said.

In the ambulance to University Medical Center, Phillips found it odd that Quon initially was not candid about her medical condition.

"She didn't want to answer me," he testified. "She just stated she wanted to go home."

Phillips said people who have just had their lives saved are "usually more forthcoming with medical information. ... They want to be treated. They want to feel better."

Eventually, a crying Quon told the paramedic she had prescriptions for Ativan, an anti-anxiety drug, and Risperdal, a medication used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

At the hospital, Quon told county fire investigator Ronald Lupton that she had taken a high-alcohol energy drink and two sleeping pills before the fire. She also told him she had lit candles near some books above the fireplace in her second-floor bedroom before taking a bath, suggesting the fireplace may have been where the fire started.

But Lupton testified that most of the damage was a result of a separately set fire in the room near an upholstered couch. That fire, just a few feet from the fireplace, was so intense it burned a 4-foot-by-6-foot hole in the wood floor and burst the water pipes, he testified.

FIRE'S CAUSE UNDETERMINED

The official cause of the fire is "undetermined," but Lupton told the grand jury he believes it was likely set by "human hands."

Joseph Jadlowski, a private fire investigator hired by Quon's insurance company, State Farm Insurance, agreed with Lupton and concluded there were two "separate simultaneously burning fires in the same area."

Jadlowski said he also couldn't determine the cause, but he believed it was "incendiary in nature."

County fire Capt. Kenny Holding testified he was dumbfounded by the strange burn pattern, calling it "completely indescribable." Just a couple feet from the massive hole in the floor, there was literally no damage to the bed and its furnishings.

"To have that much damage in one spot, but two feet away to not have more damage, is atypical," Holding testified. "We brought all of our crews up there to look at that. I've never seen anything like that before."

Holding said he found the burn pattern so unique that he took photos of it with his cellphone for future training seminars.

The smoldering fire had almost put itself out by the time firefighters arrived, he testified.

Both Lupton and Jadlowski told the grand jury that their investigations were hampered because they were unable to extensively interview Quon.

John Yeager, a veteran claims adjuster for State Farm Insurance, testified that he never got a chance to talk to Quon. He said it was "highly unusual" not to be able to speak with a homeowner who had put in a fire claim.

Both William Webb and Quon's former husband, Douglas Quon, intervened on her behalf, Yeager explained.

When Chief Deputy District Attorney Sandra DiGiacomo asked Yeager if he believed Webb and Quon and been "somewhat uncooperative," he replied, "Yes."

But Pitaro said Quon, who professionally fought insurance companies all her life, ultimately submitted to an examination under oath with State Farm.

"She cooperated with them," Pitaro said. "This is looking more and more like the insurance tail is wagging the prosecutorial dog."

At the hospital after the fire, Lupton testified, he encountered an "agitated" William Webb who was discouraging him from interviewing Quon.

"He said, 'This is too traumatic to her. You don't need to talk to her. You don't need to talk to her alone,' " Lupton said.

"And what did you tell him?" DiGiacomo asked.

"I told him, 'Yes sir, I do,' " Lupton responded. "She's the only occupant of this residence, and I'm going to talk to her."

Quon told Lupton she drank a Four Loco energy drink but felt sick and went to bed. She woke up still feeling sick, so she decided to do the "girl thing," light some candles on her fireplace in the bedroom and take a bath.

Eventually, Quon said she took two sleeping pills and lay down on her couch in the den. She remembered waking up in the back of an ambulance.

Quon's longtime friend, former Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Nancy Oesterle, testified that Quon had given her a similar account.

"Well, she told me, 'I better quit lighting candles around my house,' " Oesterle told the grand jury.

Lupton testified that he cut short his interview with Quon at the hospital because she appeared to be tiring, and he never got another chance to question her.

DRINKING HEAVILY

William Webb had gone to San Diego before the fire to visit a former girlfriend, Rosalinda Conde, the grand jury transcripts show. Conde, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, drove him back to Las Vegas.

She testified that Webb had been drinking heavily in San Diego and that she urged him to get help.

William Webb, who stood to receive $500,000 in Quon's will, was described by friends and family members in the transcripts as becoming "paranoid" after FBI agents conducted a massive raid in the HOA investigation in September 2008. Witnesses testified that Webb thought the FBI was tapping his phones and could listen in on his cellphone conversations even when the phone was turned off.

Webb's phones were tapped, but not necessarily by the FBI. Las Vegas police had obtained court authorization to secretly monitor his phones in their investigation into the suicide schemes.

Detective Aaron Stanton told the grand jury that he became more convinced of Quon's suicidal tendencies after detectives arrested William Webb on Nov. 9 at Green Valley Ranch in Henderson in a scheme to buy the club drug gamma hydroxybutyrtic acid, or GHB, from undercover detectives.

Detectives interviewed Quon, who allegedly planned to take the drug, at the couple's hotel room.

"We would ask a question pertaining to her being suicidal," Stanton said. "She would pause, and during that pause, she would close her eyes and just kind of take a deep breath in and then she would answer."

Stanton's supervisor, Sgt. Misty Pence, testified that detectives were concerned about Quon's safety because they were led to believe Webb had kept guns in the hotel room.

"When we told her why we were there and that we believed that Mr. Webb was either trying to assist her in committing suicide or was actually trying to hurt her, she never once seemed shocked or surprised by any of that information or anything else we said in there," Pence testified.

Pence said she told Quon she didn't believe the attorney was being "100 percent honest" with her and that she needed further mental observation.

Police ended up transporting Quon by ambulance to a mental health facility, where she was evaluated and released a couple of days later.

Pitaro said medical professionals there concluded that Quon was not suicidal and that the effort to transport her to the mental facility had been "manipulated" by police.

But Pence told the grand jury she felt obligated to take the action that she did.

"There's a lot of liability there," she testified. "If I believe she's suicidal, and I believe she has the means to commit suicide, and I walk out of that room leaving her there, then I haven't done my due diligence to keep her safe."

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