Justin Rood October 27, 2006, 12:25 PM

We’re admittedly late to the party on this scandal. But thanks to what looks increasingly like an old-fashioned cover-up, it’s still going strong.

It all started a couple of weeks ago, on Friday the 13th. It’s fair to say that luck for Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV), who’s running for Nevada governor, turned bad. And it’s fairer to say that for Chrissy Mazzeo, a 32-year-old cocktail waitress and struggling single mother, it turned even worse.

That evening Gibbons found himself, by chance, drinking with a number of charming ladies. His wife wasn’t one of them; Mazzeo was. Reports given to police later indicate the party was “flirty.” Hey, it was Las Vegas, right?

But in the final minutes of that ill-fated day, the governor and the cocktail waitress had an unfortunate run-in in a parking garage. Mazzeo told police Gibbons threatened and sexually assaulted her. Gibbons said he caught her when she tripped. (You can read Mazzeo’s statement to police here and the police report here.)

Those details are becoming increasingly irrelevant, however, compared to what’s happened since.

For some reason, the surveillance cameras in the parking garage which should have recorded the incident weren’t operating that night, police said later. Coincidentally, Gibbons’ campaign manager has his office in the same complex as the parking garage.

The police also waited a day to approach Gibbons, which is kind of an unusual approach to catching an assault suspect. Did we mention that police knew he was staying at the Residence Inn nearby? That’s where they “interviewed” him, also — not at the police station, as is typical for suspect interrogations.

Meanwhile, Gibbons’ campaign put out patently false information about the incident to media, misrepresenting where the alleged assault took place, and telling reporters that Mazzeo had recanted her accusation (she has not).

While a police photographer came to Mazzeo’s house and took pictures of her injuries on Oct. 14, Mazzeo’s lawyer, Richard Wright, says his office has never received copies, despite repeated requests for them.

Further, Wright told reporters Wednesday that based on conversations Mazzeo alleges between her and individuals who claimed contact with the Gibbons campaign, the politician’s camp had copies of her statement and police report before they were publicly released. (The Gibbons campaign denies this.)

Wright has also complained that while Nevada law requires police to disguise the identity of alleged assault victims, Las Vegas Metro police included her real name and home telephone number on police reports. Moreover, the sheriff downplayed Mazzeo’s charges in comments to reporters, despite the fact that his force had yet to investigate the incident.

Mazzeo says she was contacted by her friend, who said she was speaking for “them,” and that “they” would kill Mazzeo and her baby if she didn’t agree to retract her claims. Mazzeo also says her friend said there was money in it for her if she backed away. (Her friend denies all of this.)

Mazzeo was also contacted by a private investigator for the Gibbons camp, as well as Gibbons’ lawyer. She says they pressured her to meet, sign an agreement and make sure her official statement and Gibbons’ matched. (They deny this.)

The sheriff, Bill Young, is a political supporter of Gibbons, and Mazzeo has refused to cooperate with an investigation through the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, which Young oversees. She’s asked for the county district attorney to probe the matter, but he says he’ll only do it if Mazzeo promises to give “110 percent.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mazzeo’s charges are only a sideshow to the main event: what appears to be an orchestrated attempt by the Gibbons campaign to cover up the incident through intimidation and persuasion. In the process, they and the people who appear to have cooperated — the sheriff and police personnel foremost among the bunch — seem to have run roughshod over Mazzeo’s ability to get a fair investigation, much less a fair hearing of her claims.

Jim Gibbons