What do a teacher, doctor, psychiatric care worker and police officer have in common? Not only are they all public sector employees—people paid to look out for society's best interests—they're among folks who've gotten in hot water the past year for doing just the opposite. A quick look at some recent cases:
Hand in the Taxpayers' Cookie Jar
Maybe the overseers at the state treasurer's office will start paying administrative assistants more after Cathryn Rose Miller took at least $2,500 in unclaimed American Express travelers checks from the Las Vegas office, according to the state attorney general's office. On September 20, Miller pleaded guilty in Clark County District Court. She faces one to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Fox Watching the Henhouse?
Chief Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen told the Las Vegas Sun that the job of Edward Burdelas, a mental health technician at Desert Willow Treatment Center—a West Charleston Boulevard facility housing juvenile sex offenders and working with youth ages 6 to 8 with mental disorders—was to watch them "while they were sleeping and while they were showering to make sure they didn't reoffend each other." Turns out that Burdelas had sexual issues of his own. A computer technician working on a virus discovered child pornography downloaded to a computer traced to Burdelas. The 43-year-old Burdelas, who pleaded guilty on September 20 in Clark County District Court to four counts of possessing child pornography, faces four to 24 years in prison.
I'll Teach You, or Not
On August 29, the first day of classes in the Clark County School District, cops arrested 24-year-old Palo Verde High physical education teacher Paul Buboltz. Back in April, Buboltz was allegedly involved in an altercation that led to the death of a patron in a Minnesota bar where he worked as a bouncer. According to a press release from the Stearns County Attorney's office in Minnesota: "Paul Robert Buboltz, DOB 5-3-81, has been charged with Second Degree Manslaughter in the death of Justin Smiley outside the Red Carpet bar in downtown St. Cloud on April 8, 2005. Results of the final autopsy, received late last week by the Stearns County Attorney's Office, show that Smiley died of complications resulting from a lack of oxygen to his brain as a result of prolonged compression of the neck (strangulation)." Buboltz will face the charges in Minnesota and could receive up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a $20,000 fine.
Gamblin' Man, or, On This Episode of Cops ...
Metro police arrested one of their own on September 6. They began investigating narcotics Detective Eric Barron after he filed an insurance claim alleging that burglars pilfered $6,400 in cash and a $10,000 Rolex. Barron never purchased the watch from Ben Bridge Jewelers, police discovered, and allegedly had his wife, Jennifer, who was fired from Ben Bridge, lie about the watch "because he needed the money from the watch due to his gambling problem," police say.
Barron wasn't done. He was also charged with falsifying documents that precipitated the arrest of Henderson resident Jeffrey Port on drug charges. Police claim he fabricated a story about needing $1,800 to buy marijuana from Port, money he later admitted would be used for gambling. In addition, police allege that Barron used informants to buy small quantities of drugs but, instead of turning the drugs in, he produced large hauls of substances that resembled marijuana but weren't.
Take This and These—Doctor's Orders
Based on allegations that he had sex with a patient and prescribed excessive amounts of narcotics such as OxyContin, the state Board of Medical Examiners suspended the license of obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Doyle Stuart Steele in July. (State and federal investigations were launched as a result). More trouble came for Steele when 37-year-old Henderson resident Patricia Copening, a former patient, implicated him after her arrest on June 6, 2004. Copening is facing felony charges of driving under the influence and causing an accident that killed 21-year-old Gregory Sanchez Jr. and seriously injured Robert Martinez. State troopers reported that an erratic-driving Copening plowed into two vans near the U.S. Highway 95-Flamingo Road off-ramp, jettisoning the vehicles into Sanchez and Martinez.
Driving Miss Prostitute
Also in July, former Department of Motor Vehicles employee Charita Carter received a suspended 12-month-to-36-month sentence and three years' probation for selling a fake state identification card to Crystal Lamb. When cops arrested Lamb for prostitution in September 2004, they discovered a fake ID card that was eventually traced back to Carter. In court, Carter seemed contrite: "To the Honorable Judge (Stewart) Bell, the attorney general, my attorney, my family and friends, I just want to say I'm terribly sorry for what I have put everyone through. It has been a learning experience, and I'm here to take responsibility for my actions."
Lander Mine
Lest you think Vegas has a monopoly on public-sector employees gone wild, note that former Lander County Sheriff Mike Kranovich received 36 months' probation last month for felony embezzlement of $1,500 from the county and misusing his county credit card. A federal court also convicted him of tapping a kitty used for undercover drug operations. Kranovich, who used some of the money for airfare for himself and his wife to Dallas and Hawaii, could do time since the federal conviction mandates incarceration.