Judge Orders Grand Jury Investigation Of UNR
On May 14, 2008, three citizens filed a Petition to convene a grand jury investigation of public corruption at the University of Nevada, Reno. The affidavits and complaint exceed 1700 pages.
Judge Connie Steinheimer issued an order on December 10, 2009, granting the Petition in part. The Judge filed her findings in support of the grand jury petition under seal to protect the secrecy of the grand jury proceedings.
In her ruling, Judge Steinheimer found that "Petitioners have met their burden as to reasonable evidence existing to refer some matters to the grand jury for investigation. The specifics of those matters have been addressed in the sealed order filed contemporaneously with this public decision."
On September 17-18, 2009, several Nevada citizens testified and presented evidence of crimes committed by UNR officials at an evidentiary hearing in the Second Judicial District Court before Judge Steinheimer. In addition to the testimony, which covered a small sampling of the evidence, the citizens submitted over 5000 documents of supporting evidence.
Petitioners brought forward a large number of allegations and a fraction of them were dismissed by Judge Steinheimer. For many of the allegations that were dismissed the Judge argued the statute of limitations had expired, rather than lack of evidence.
The Petitioners plan to appeal the dismissal of these allegations to the Nevada Supreme Court.
Categories: Terri Patraw
Tags: Terri Patraw University of Nevada Reno
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