Grand jury report filed, findings sealed

A grand jury report due in August was filed in district court this week, but the contents of the report won't be made public until people named in it have a chance to respond.

"I'll make no comments about it at all -- if one even exists," District Judge Bill Maddox said Thursday. "Proceedings before the grand jury are secret."

According the Nevada law, judges have 60 days to review a report submitted by a grand jury. That deadline expired in August, but Maddox wouldn't comment on the delay.

Now that the report has been filed with the court clerk, people named in it can be notified and given five days to request a hearing to have their names removed from the report. The judge then may set a hearing within 20 days to decide what should be removed. After that process, the report is expected to be made public.

A draft of the report was given to Maddox in June, when the grand jury concluded its investigation of allegations brought by Carson City developer Ron Weddell.

Weddell believed officials in the Carson City Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office, motivated by a "vendetta" against him, refused to arrest a man he said had kidnapped his daughter and runn down an employee in his construction yard.

During what Weddell called a "citizen's arrest" in October 1997, he fired four shots at the suspect, Jaime Bustamante. Weddell was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and those charges were dismissed only to be reinstated by the Supreme Court. Weddell is petitioning the court to reconsider.

In July 2000 Weddell contracted a company to circulate a petition to convene a grand jury investigation. The jury was seated March 13 and spent about four months interviewing witnesses.

Last week, Weddell's attorney Day Williams asked the Supreme Court to order district judges Michael Griffin and Bill Maddox to release the report. The sealed report was filed Tuesday.

"I declare a victory," Williams said. "We won. They finally complied with the law."

Three grand jurors said Thursday they were relieved to hear the report may soon be public. Seventeen people sat on the grand jury.

"I'm glad that its finally going to come out because I think there may be some things in there that the public should know before the next election," said one juror.

Another, when told the report was released but sealed, was incredulous. "At this point I am not surprised by anything," the juror said.

A third juror said the extra three months it took to file the report was "amazing."

"I am happy that it's going to be released. I think it may be too late, but who knows?" he said.

Three indictments came out of the grand jury investigation. All three have been dismissed.

"If they have cancelled all this against the indicted, why are they still going after Weddell?" one of the jurors asked about charges still pending against the Carson City contractor. "Why don't they just drop the whole mess?"

The grand jury report is one of several court proceedings still unresolved in a saga that began in 1997.

To date there are still at least six legal filings pending.