Just over a month before Sheldon Adelson's family was revealed as the new owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, three reporters at the newspaper received an unusual assignment passed down from the newspaper's corporate management: Drop everything and spend two weeks monitoring all activity of three Clark County judges. The reason for the assignment and its unprecedented nature was never explained. One of the three judges observed was District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez, whose current caseload includes Jacobs v. Sands, a long-running wrongful termination lawsuit filed against Adelson and his company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., by Steven Jacobs, who ran Sands' operations in Macau. The case has attracted global media attention because of Jacobs' contention in court filings that he was fired for trying to break the company's links to Chinese organized crime triads, and allegations that Adelson turned a blind eye to prostitution and other illegal activities in his resorts there. How the judges, and Gonzalez in particular, came under scrutiny just as GateHouse Media was quietly finalizing the newspaper's sale and an ongoing management contract with Adelson's family remains unclear. None of the 15,000 words the reporters wrote about their time sitting in courtrooms was ever published by the Review-Journal, but days later a long article blasting Gonzalez's rulings in the Sands case appeared in a small Connecticut newspaper with a connection to Adelson that became known only last week. The monitoring effort began on Nov. 6 with a call from a top GateHouse Media executive to Review-Journal Publisher Jason Taylor. Taylor and other Review-Journal executives have said GateHouse did not specify Gonzalez as one of the three judges, and that she was selected in-house because she specializes in business lawsuits and is handling unrelated high-profile cases involving Adelson and fellow casino mogul Steve Wynn. Family Court Judge Mathew Harter and Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joseph Sciscento were selected by the reporters assigned to the effort. An internal memo outlining the court initiative notes that each reporter was to "observe how engaged the judge is in the case, whether they're prepared or not, if they favor one lawyer over another, whether they're over- or under-worked — even whether they show up for work on time, or not." The memo, authored by Review-Journal Deputy Editor James G. Wright, notes the initiative was undertaken without explanation from GateHouse and over the objection of the newspaper's management, and there was no expectation that anything would be published. "We've simply been told we must do it, and it must start on Tuesday," Wright wrote. Diaries kept by the reporters were submitted in mid-November to Taylor and the newspaper's attorney. Taylor said the diaries were never sent to GateHouse headquarters, nor did GateHouse corporate officials ever ask for them. "When the request was handed down, it seemed like little more than a waste of time and resources," Review-Journal Editor Michael Hengel said. "I still think it was a waste of time, but now I wonder what really was behind it." On Nov. 30, the New Britain Herald, a tiny Connecticut newspaper not affiliated with GateHouse, published an article critical of the performance of courts that specialize in business disputes. It singled out Judge Gonzalez with scathing criticism of her "inconsistent and even contradictory" handling of the Adelson case and another lawsuit involving Wynn Resorts Ltd. The article suggests Gonzalez's rulings in those cases were unfair, and her work "undermines the rationale for the creation of such (business) courts in the first place — which was to provide reliable consistency, even predictability in the resolution of frequently recurring issues." The article also says 24 percent of Nevada lawyers rated Gonzalez as "less than adequate" in the Review-Journal's regular "Judging the Judges" survey, but incorrectly presents that as an overall rating, rather a ranking on one category regarding bias toward lawyers or litigants appearing before her. The Adelson and Wynn cases were the only specific examples cited at length in the story. Two other judges were mentioned, but the critique of Gonzalez's courtroom proceedings consumed more than a quarter of the 1,900-word article. The article's author was identified as Edward Clarkin, whose byline is found only one other time in the archives of the Connecticut newspaper, on a review of a Polish restaurant. Attempts to locate Clarkin have been unsuccessful. Herald executives did not respond to requests for information, but a newspaper staffer said no one by that name works there. A nationwide search turned up no writer by that name, though laudatory reviews from Edward Clarkin, identified as being from the New Britain Herald and a sister paper, the Bristol Press, appear on the website of Tennessee mystery writer Keith Donnelly. On Dec. 10, GateHouse announced the sale of the Review-Journal to News + Media LLC, a company organized in Delaware in September. At an RJ staff meeting, Michael Schroeder was introduced as the manager of the company, and said he would not identify its owners. Schroeder owns Central Connecticut Communications, which operates the New Britain Herald and three other papers. Reached at his Connecticut newspaper office Friday, Schroeder declined to say how the article came about or discuss Clarkin's role at the papers. "I'm not going to talk about our newsgathering," he said, later adding, "I don't talk about our reporters, either — or our freelancers or anyone else." Asked how a Review-Journal reporter might be able to reach Clarkin, Schroder replied: "I have no idea." When contacted for comment Thursday Gonzalez said only that she didn't mind reporters or anyone else sitting in her courtroom, which is open to the public, but declined to comment further because the issue involves pending cases. A District Court official who declined to be identified for fear of retribution suggested the issue may be of interest to federal authorities. "I almost think your question is a federal question because ... when there's a question at a district court that could involve a conflict, that's not a question we can investigate,'' the official said. "It seems to me you might want to talk to the (Justice Department) or someone else."
