Nevada AG’s extortion letter just confirmed TV station sitting on Adam Laxalt rape allegation story
The Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate’s lawyer sent me a censorship letter and demanded that I keep his threats secret. You can see the whole thing below.
Lawyers for Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt in their Virginia offices emailed me an extortion demand and threat letter at 11:19 pm the night of October 24th, seeking a retraction of my last report about him.
Laxalt’s letter confirmed the facts of my previous story about a Las Vegas TV newsroom sitting on serious rape allegations against the GOP gubernatorial dating back to his college days as a hard-drinking student at Tulane University.
Adam Laxalt is this year’s GOP gubernatorial candidate in Nevada.
This afternoon I received a physical copy of his attorneys’ threat letter at my mortgage business’ offices while I was filing a criminal extortion complaint at the Miami Police Department’s downtown headquarters. (image below)
Last night, Danielle P. gave her first published video interview to The David Pakman Show detailing her rape allegation against Laxalt, which you can see embedded below via YouTube.
Laxalt’s lawyers have threatened at least four Nevada news outlets for covering or just asking him about my story, and one national news outlet in addition to the letter and email embedded below.
One Nevada news outlet told me that they received Laxalt’s heavy-handed threat letter demanding prior restraint on their publication solely for asking his campaign if he knew Danielle P. by her full name.
In their late-night missive to me, Laxalt’s lawyers Elizabeth M. Locke, P.C. and Joseph R. Oliveri demanded confidentiality for their naked threat letter, writing in the email delivering their demands that, “Republication of this letter as a backdoor way to republish further false claims about Mr. Laxalt will not be tolerated.”
However, neither attorney requested, nor was granted “off the record” status for any discussion. Furthermore, I have no contractual relationship or current court proceeding with Adam Laxalt which would create an obligation of confidentiality on my behalf.
It’s a gross bullying tactic.
But the Nevada Attorney General’s censorship demand letter does clearly note that my story is about a political matter of public importance because they claim that Nevada’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Sisolak is aware of Danielle P.’s allegations and that they are a political campaign issue.
Ironically, Laxalt’s attorneys fully confirmed the accuracy of my story’s central point, that a Nevada television news outlet reported Danielle P.’s #MeToo story, but refused to air it:
“At least one Nevada media outlet, KLAS CBS 8, refused to publish “Danielle P’s” sexual assault allegations…”
As I previously reported an investigative reporter for Las Vegas TV station KLAS CBS 8 — whom I shall now reveal as Vanessa Murphy — interviewed a woman named Danielle P. who accuses Laxalt of raping her in New Orleans only weeks before entering a rehab facility in the mid-90s.
Danielle P. flew to Las Vegas on October 3rd and stayed through October 8th to recount her most painful memories for the cameras at KLAS, as Uber and airline receipts confirmed before my original story.
Just three days after I reported that her producers refused to air the story, Murphy flew to Louisiana to have a chat with Danielle P. at her home, without calling in advance.
In their lengthy missive (embedded below), the attorneys argued that Laxalt should be forgiven for any unreported sexual assaults during an era in his life when he was arrested for assaulting a police officer and DUI in Virginia because he has done well since then.
The Nevada Attorney General’s lawyers were careful to expressly mention multiple times that he is a state actor, and that should be a reason not to publish rape allegations about him.
His lawyers compared the rape allegations against Laxalt to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whom Republicans elevated to the Supreme Court this month, even though he faced credible allegations of a sexual assault. After his confirmation, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts referred numerous well grounded judicial misconduct complaints about perjury and partisanship during his confirmation hearings.
Locke and Oliveri did issue a denial on Laxalt’s behalf:
Let there be no mistake: The allegation that Mr. Laxalt sexually assaulted “Danielle P” in Louisiana over twenty years ago is completely false, as is any allegation that Mr. Laxalt has sexually assaulted any other women.
Mr. Laxalt has never sexually assaulted anyone, anywhere, at any time. Period.
They did not explain why the Laxalt campaign refused to give a comment or deny the story in my first two phone calls, nor return the two messages I left in any way.
Nor did they explain why Adam Laxalt’s campaign failed to reach out to me in the intervening nine days to issue a denial.
But they did fill the letter with defamatory allegations which they threaten to unleash in court unless I remain quiet about their extortionate demands and retract a factual story.
The timing of Laxalt’s latest threat letter is probably not a coincidence, as Danielle P. took to YouTube last night to tell her story to The David Pakman Show.
That’s where Danielle P. revealed that her belief that there is at least one other accuser who has remained silent, if not more, but I have no information to prove or disprove her assertion.
Nonetheless, Adam Laxalt’s lawyers denied that to me in their letter beseeching me to cease covering matters of public interest about the Nevada Attorney General.
YouTube broadcaster Danny Pakman received one of Laxalt’s “confidential” threat letters and removed this exclusive video interview.
What is not in doubt, is that the timing of the allegations by Danielle P. stemming from her residency in New Orleans where she worked at the world famous Emeril’s Restaurant, and that time period intersected with Adam Laxalt’s short stint as a Tulane University student according to websites, voting records and other public records which I reviewed before publishing my original story. I also reviewed an apology letter for “taking advantage” of Danielle P. purportedly written by Laxalt from rehab in 1997, but it could not be confirmed, nor disproven to be actually from him.
Laxalt’s famous last name propelled him to high office in Nevada
Adam Laxalt is the son and grandson of US Senators, his grandfather being former Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt who served in Congress from 1974 through 1987 and was Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign chairman. Paul Laxalt was known as the “first friend” of Reagan and passed recently at the age of 96. Only a few years ago, his real father Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) admitted paternity in an extramarital affair with his mother, Michelle Laxalt, the Senator’s daughter and then-staffer.
Now, the Laxalt family has very publicly come out in opposition to Adam Laxalt’s campaign for governor of Nevada, saying that they have irreconcilable differences about policy and resent his claims of local roots, which they deem false.
The Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate reacted to his family’s disapproval much in the way his attorneys responded to my reporting, by alleging that everything was about left-right politics.
The rest of their letter is dominated by an attempt to discredit the messenger — Lou Colagiovanni, a confidant who is helping Danielle P. navigate the painful process of speaking out her #MeToo story — by presenting a worthless affidavit with zero evidence relevant to Danielle P.’s claims of rape against Adam Laxalt. Today, he is a paid political operative in Nevada.
Oliveri and Locke even lied about Colagiovanni’s history of exposing sexual predators which they called, “attacking non-leftist political candidates.”
In fact, Colagiovanni became a nationally feared criminal justice and political journalist after for revealing the substantiated sex allegations that ended Democrat Anthony Wiener’s political career while he was running for Mayor of New York City five years ago.
Wiener infamously called himself Carlos Danger online in his chats with sex worker Sydney Leathers.
He quit the Mayor’s race after being exposed.
There is no expectation of privacy for threat letters
“This constitutes our client’s formal demand for a retraction,” Laxalt’s lawyers wrote, “pursuant to any applicable statutory or common law.”
The First Amendment of America’s Constitution gives its highest protection to political speech about matters of public interest. This website is published in Florida, where the state’s journalist shield law and anti-SLAPP law give statutory protection to news outlets like this one against revealing sources, and which are aimed at stopping meritless litigation aimed at suppressing First Amendment activities.
“Adam Laxalt is using his position as the Nevada Attorney General to threaten and intimidate a journalist,” says Massachusetts lawyer J. Whitfield Larrabee who drafted two complaints of judicial misconduct on behalf of clients against Judge Kavanaugh that have been referred for investigation. “It is illegal under federal law to use his office to interfere with the freedom of the press.”
“The public has a right to know,” says Larrabee, “about serious allegations of sexual assault that are made against public officials.”
Florida’s criminal extortion law protects its residents from coercive threats by people seeking financial gains — like a paid attorney or a politician seeking a job as Nevada Governor — with intent to compel the person so threatened to act against their will.
That is why I elected to file a complaint with the Miami Police Department and provide them with Laxalt’s extortion and threat letters, which are now a public record that anyone may request under the Florida Sunshine law.
Accordingly, The Stern Facts formally declines to acquiesce to ClareLocke LLP’s extortionate threat or demands that we censor our factually accurate reporting about the Nevada Attorney General’s past problems with alcohol and Danielle P.’s rape allegation against their client Adam Laxalt.
Criminal extortion complaint to Miami Police Department:
Extortion letter from Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s via his Virginia lawyers:
Censorship demand letter from Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s via his Virginia lawyers:
