A Carson City woman believed to be the girlfriend of a man wanted in connection with an Oregon rape has taken to the Internet to complain she is being harassed by the Carson City Sheriff's Department.
Under the user name Sopureifloat, a woman named Ivory asks YouTube users to call Carson Sheriff's Detective Bob Motamenpour and ask him to stop what she describes as invasive behavior in the hunt for convicted sex offender Philip Reed Yoder, 56.
Yoder is wanted by Oregon authorities in connection with another rape. He is also being sought by Carson City investigators for failing to register here as a convicted sex offender. He was convicted in 2001 on four charges related to attempted sodomy and rape.
"They've pounded on my door at 4 a.m. They like to sit in unmarked cars in the parking lot of my apartments. I've heard from my neighbors that they've been looking in my windows," the 25-year-old woman says into the camera. "That's incredibly invasive. Who knows, maybe they've seen me dressing or something. Maybe that's what they are hoping to see."
Motamenpour found out about the video late last week after a man in Erie, Penn., watched it and called him.
The Carson City investigator sees this as a way to hinder his investigation.
He denied looking in the woman's windows or harassing her. He said he came in contact with her after he went to Yoder's apartment and found her there, but Yoder was gone.
"She is trying to actually put pressure on me, and the public, to delay my investigation," said Motamenpour. "As far as I'm concerned, Yoder's a public safety problem right now. Looking at his criminal history and what he's wanted for, I'm not going to be beating around the bush. He's a dangerous guy."
Ivory also complains of an Aug. 21 Nevada Appeal article in which Yoder's vehicles were described, and that said he is usually in the company of a 25-year-old black woman, as well as the fact that he managed the Golden Dragon apartments on North Carson Street, property owned by Dennis Hof, the owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel.
"... the car that they described isn't his car. The car's mine. It's registered to me."
But Hof said in a phone interview Aug. 27, that Yoder does own the vehicles. After the Appeal article ran with its description, one of the vehicles was on display for sale in the parking lot of the Hof-owned NV50 Club in Mound House.
"The vehicle was given to his girlfriend and the girlfriend wants to sell it," Hof said. "So one of the people that lives at the apartment complex is trying to sell it for them. His (Yoder's) girlfriend is devastated " he's trying to help her " and truthfully, I would help her any way I can."
Hof said another company he owns separate from his Mound House brothel owns the Golden Dragon apartments where Yoder was manager in exchange for a reduced rent.
He said Yoder never worked for him directly.
"The Bunny Ranch never paid him a dime," said Hof.
Hof said he has cooperated with authorities and has no idea where Yoder, a former publisher of a guide to Pacific Northwest strip clubs, is now.
"We told all our people that live there in a memo form, if you see him call 911. I want him arrested as much as anyone else. This is a shock," Hof said.
Ivory also denied knowing Yoder's whereabouts in the video.
"He took off. He disappeared. And I think the police think I know where he is, but I don't and ever since they've been harassing me," she says.
- Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.
The video can be viewed at youtube.com/nevadaappealvideo