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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Waitress Fights Governor’s Motion to Stay

LAS VEGAS (CN) - A cocktail waitress who accused Gov. Jim Gibbons of sexual assault just weeks before his 2006 gubernatorial election is trying to stop his attempt to stay discovery. Chrissy Mazzeo filed her lawsuit in Federal Court last October, accusing Gibbons of assaulting her in a parking lot and then conspiring with police officials to cover up the alleged incident.

Along with Gibbons, Mazzeo named campaign consultant Sig Rogich, former Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, attorney Don Campbell and Mazzeo's "ex-best friend" Pennie Mossett-Puhek in her lawsuit.

In it, she also accused Gibbons of kidnapping, battery, false imprisonment, negligence and slander.

Gibbons has maintained he did nothing wrong, and tried to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that it was meritless. The other defendants also tried to have the lawsuit tossed.

Mazzeo says Gibbons, who "had been drinking heavily, felt up Mazzeo's calf and thigh as he complimented her and told her how bored he was with his marriage and unsuccessfully tried to convince Mazzeo to come back to his hotel room with him."

She also says Gibbons, who was then a Congressman and the frontrunner to win Nevada's gubernatorial election, stole her keys to lure her into a parking lot, where he allegedly pinned her into a corner, saying, "You can run away or you can just let this happen. I'm not going to fuck you. I'm going to rape you. ... You either listen to me and do what I say, or you're fucked!"

Mazzeo says she escaped by kicking Gibbons in the shin and called police at a nearby hotel. She says Gibbons later caught up with her there, grabbed her arm and said, "You screwed up because you called 911. You'll be sorry."

Mazzeo says Gibbons then used "the powerful trio of (Rogich, Campbell and Young) to apply pressure to Mazzeo to drop the charges." Mazzeo did, but later re-instituted them.

Mazzeo also says Gibbons and his team conspired to destroy a videotape that she says captured the whole incident.

"Gibbons, Young, Rogich, Campbell and Pennie ... conspired for the purposes of impeding, hindering, obstructing or defeating ... the due course of justice in the State of Nevada with the intent to deny Mazzeo the equal protection of the laws."

Mazzeo is represented by Robert Kossack.

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