apparently ignored by the police as they investigated her death.
Phil Alfano, Kathy’s brother, told 48 Hours a similar account. He said that Kathy had told him that there were several people who had tried to scare her to keep her from running for state treasurer.
“She did tell me that several people had warned her to be careful,” Alfano told CBS correspondent Troy Roberts. “There were threats made to her.”
But there was another troubling aspect surrounding the involvement of the Nevada State Police being so active in the investigation of Kathy’s death. According to the Las Vegas Sun, while the Reno Police Department was still referring to their case as a death investigation and proclaiming that Chaz Higgs was neither a suspect nor a person of interest, the state police were apparently closely monitoring all of the media reports, print and broadcast, that came out about Kathy’s death. At one point, the Sun had launched its own investigation and had reporters scrambling to try and learn as much about Chaz Higgs as possible. During the course of their efforts, they spoke to each of Higgs’s ex-wives in an attempt to develop a profile of the newly widowed man, and at least in one instance that the Sun documented, the Nevada Division of Investigation had been there afterward advising the source not to speak with the news media.
The big question on the minds of many people was “why?” Since there hadn’t been any gag orders issued in the case, what made the state police think that it was their responsibility to advise people not to speak with the news media? And even if a gag order had been issued, it would seem that a violation of such would become an issue for the court and not a police agency. Were there larger issues behind the actions of the state police? Had those in power at the highest levels of state government given orders for the state police to monitor the news media reports and, wherever possible, put a lid on the flow of information? If so, why? If it is the job of the investigative arm of a police agency to determine the truth behind criminal activities, what was there to hide?
When the Sun brought the matter up to the Reno Police Department, the response that the newspaper received was that the Reno Police Department had not asked the state police to instruct people not to talk about the case.
“They probably did it thinking they were helping us,” Lieutenant Jon Catalano told the Sun.
Helping them do what? Find the truth? Or cover up the corruption that Kathy Augustine had purportedly been trying to expose?
Like the circumstances of Kathy’s death, their action was a mystery that might never be solved because no one, it seemed, wanted to ask the questions needed to arrive at the answers. After the Las Vegas Sun article about Chaz Higgs came out—with the information buried deep inside about the state police advising people not to speak with the media—no one, it seemed, had been interested in pursuing the issue any further.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Chaz Higgs’s name had first shown up in news media accounts as early as March 2005, right after he had filed a complaint with the Nevada Ethics Commission against Senator Steven Horsford, a Democrat who represented north Las Vegas. Higgs alleged in his complaint that there were irregularities that pertained to some of the senator’s campaign contributions. According to published reports, Horsford claimed that Higgs’s complaint had been filed purely for retribution for criticism he had voiced during Kathy Augustine’s impeachment proceedings. Nonetheless, Horsford later filed amendments to some of his campaign reports, and the matter seemed to go away. Questions, such as whether Higgs had filed the complaint at the behest of his wife, or whether he had done it on his own, or whether Horsford had been a part of Kathy’s larger corruption investigation, were never adequately answered.
Chapter 10
As the summer of 2006 passed
Phil Alfano, Kathy’s brother, told 48 Hours a similar account. He said that Kathy had told him that there were several people who had tried to scare her to keep her from running for state treasurer.
“She did tell me that several people had warned her to be careful,” Alfano told CBS correspondent Troy Roberts. “There were threats made to her.”
But there was another troubling aspect surrounding the involvement of the Nevada State Police being so active in the investigation of Kathy’s death. According to the Las Vegas Sun, while the Reno Police Department was still referring to their case as a death investigation and proclaiming that Chaz Higgs was neither a suspect nor a person of interest, the state police were apparently closely monitoring all of the media reports, print and broadcast, that came out about Kathy’s death. At one point, the Sun had launched its own investigation and had reporters scrambling to try and learn as much about Chaz Higgs as possible. During the course of their efforts, they spoke to each of Higgs’s ex-wives in an attempt to develop a profile of the newly widowed man, and at least in one instance that the Sun documented, the Nevada Division of Investigation had been there afterward advising the source not to speak with the news media.
The big question on the minds of many people was “why?” Since there hadn’t been any gag orders issued in the case, what made the state police think that it was their responsibility to advise people not to speak with the news media? And even if a gag order had been issued, it would seem that a violation of such would become an issue for the court and not a police agency. Were there larger issues behind the actions of the state police? Had those in power at the highest levels of state government given orders for the state police to monitor the news media reports and, wherever possible, put a lid on the flow of information? If so, why? If it is the job of the investigative arm of a police agency to determine the truth behind criminal activities, what was there to hide?
When the Sun brought the matter up to the Reno Police Department, the response that the newspaper received was that the Reno Police Department had not asked the state police to instruct people not to talk about the case.
“They probably did it thinking they were helping us,” Lieutenant Jon Catalano told the Sun.
Helping them do what? Find the truth? Or cover up the corruption that Kathy Augustine had purportedly been trying to expose?
Like the circumstances of Kathy’s death, their action was a mystery that might never be solved because no one, it seemed, wanted to ask the questions needed to arrive at the answers. After the Las Vegas Sun article about Chaz Higgs came out—with the information buried deep inside about the state police advising people not to speak with the media—no one, it seemed, had been interested in pursuing the issue any further.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Chaz Higgs’s name had first shown up in news media accounts as early as March 2005, right after he had filed a complaint with the Nevada Ethics Commission against Senator Steven Horsford, a Democrat who represented north Las Vegas. Higgs alleged in his complaint that there were irregularities that pertained to some of the senator’s campaign contributions. According to published reports, Horsford claimed that Higgs’s complaint had been filed purely for retribution for criticism he had voiced during Kathy Augustine’s impeachment proceedings. Nonetheless, Horsford later filed amendments to some of his campaign reports, and the matter seemed to go away. Questions, such as whether Higgs had filed the complaint at the behest of his wife, or whether he had done it on his own, or whether Horsford had been a part of Kathy’s larger corruption investigation, were never adequately answered.
Chapter 10
As the summer of 2006 passed
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