Clark County D.A. Wolfson to seek fourth term

By Dana Gentry

Nevada Current

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson announced Tuesday he’ll seek reelection next year to the seat he’s held since his appointment in 2012. He has since been elected to the position three times.

Nevada’s 12-year limit on the terms of most elected officials do not apply to county administrative offices such as clerk, sheriff, and district attorney.

“These are tough times, and now more than ever, experience matters,” Wolfson said in a video announcing his reelection campaign.

Wolfson raised $1.6 million in 2022 for his last reelection bid and had $475,000 on hand after handily defeating Republican Timothy Treffinger.

A registered Democrat, Wolfson contributed $2,500 of his campaign windfall to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo; $1,000 to Republican Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama; and $1,000 and $1,500 respectively to Republican state Senate candidates Lori Rogich and John Steinbeck, whose elections were integral to Lombardo’s successful effort to block a veto-proof Democratic majority in the Senate.

Wolfson made smaller contributions to Democratic legislative candidates Cameron Miller, Marlene Drake, and Ryan Hampton.

He also contributed $10,000 to his daughter Rebecca’s campaign for Las Vegas Municipal Judge.

Wolfson’s campaign news release touts his creation in 2016 of the Conviction Integrity Unit to review questionable cases. The next year, he signed off on the exoneration of DeMarlo Berry, who served 22 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

At the time, Wolfson said he created the unit “to provide a way for certain cases to be reviewed independently and evaluated on a variety of factors, including new evidence.”

But new evidence failed to win over Wolfson in the case of Fred Steese, who Wolfson forced to plead guilty to second degree murder to avoid a lawsuit against the state, according to defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen.

When Judge Elissa Cadish wrote an order finding Steese innocent after evidence revealed he was in Idaho on the day of the murder for which he was convicted, Wolfson threatened to keep Steese in custody for years pending the D.A.’s appeal of Cadish’s order.

“Wolfson said if Steese wanted to get out he had to take an Alford plea and admit to second degree murder,” Rasmussen says. After 22 years in prison, Steese opted for the Alford plea, a twisted legal maneuver requiring defendants to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit.

The move prevented Steese from suing the state for wrongful prosecution and a potential judgment in his favor.

Wolfson’s campaign also touts his establishment of Clark County’s “first pre-charge diversion program.” The campaign did not immediately respond to requests for explanation.

In his 2022 campaign Wolfson touted a post-conviction program to give offenders “the help they need, rather than being sent to prison.”

Wolfson’s office had no data on the number of participants or their success rate, and a court administrator told the Current that judges were unaware of the program.

“We do not have any records of the program or information about that program in our database,” wrote Hans Jessup of the state’s Administrative Office of the Court.

In 2018, Wolfson campaigned for a victim rights ballot measure known as Marsy’s Law, which was financed almost entirely by billionaire Henry Nicholas, who at the time faced felony counts of drug trafficking in Clark County.

The following year, the Current reported that two of the three non-profits sharing a $1 million dollar donation that helped keep Nicholas and his friend, Ashley Fargo out of prison, had ties to the Clark County District Attorney’s office and Nicholas’ defense attorney David Chesnoff.

Last year, following the arrest of two suspects in the abandonment of Reba, a bulldog who died days after being discarded in a plastic bin, Wolfson bemoaned animal abuse and neglect laws that he said prevented him from seeking stiff sentences. An investigation by the Current revealed Wolfson rarely sought prison time for such offenses.

Wolfson, a criminal defense attorney in private practice for more than two decades, was appointed to the Las Vegas City Council to fill a vacancy in 2004 and was subsequently elected to the position.

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Dana Gentry is a native Las Vegan and award-winning investigative journalist. She is a graduate of Bishop Gorman High School and holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.