You Decide, did Washoe County Cover-Up the alleged lewd behavior of a County Commissioner?
Picon Press has been awaiting a public records response from the County regarding an on-going investigation into allegations of bathroom sex during the Reno Rodeo in 2015. Despite numerous requests and re-phrasing of the verbiage, the county is stonewalling this request, and possibly for good reason.
Picon Press did not take this story lightly, anytime personal lives are affected by the stories we author it gives us pause. We do however find that public officials alleged to have behaved in ways that are unethical or immoral, are fair game. Furthermore, the basis of this story originates in public records, we are simply providing the records and our readers can decide. Therefore, we believe this public interest story is important and helps to ensure our elected officials are accountable for their actions, despite the consequences.
In June of 2022, while working on another story, Picon Press stumbled upon a former county employee who told us of an event involving a Washoe County Commissioner back in 2015. From that person’s recollection, during the Reno Rodeo in 2015, he/she was working the night shift with another employee at the county building, located at 1001 East 9th Street in Reno, Nevada. During the evening, he/she saw a man he/she did not recognize at the time with a female enter the Building A parking lot doors. These doors are locked at night and county issued keycards will open the doors.
He/she saw this man and woman enter at 9:41/9:42 pm {sic} on June 20, 2015 and walk up the stairs. He/she said the man tried to access the “admin doors” and “upstairs hall doors” but was unable to open the doors. Unbeknownst to any of these people, Neomi, the cleaning lady contracted with the county, had both downstairs restrooms propped open as she was cleaning. This former employee saw the female grab the male by the hand and pull him into the men’s restroom. He/she then reported that the two had sex, based on what he/she described as “moaning” and at some point, Neomi walked into the men’s room and found the couple engaging in sexual activity. Accordingly, Neomi backed out and went about other duties.
The former employee authored an email to his/her former boss, Nancy Parent, the then elected County Clerk, concluding the email with, “I didn’t think an employee would be so bold and reckless with us sitting right here and doors open.” The email was dated June 20, 2015, at 10:58 p.m. He/she followed that email up with another about how this same employee tried to enter the doors upstairs again and was in the garage, a place only employees and electees can access. He/she described him as alone now and inebriated.
Two days later, on June 22, 2015, Nancy Parent responded to the email and asked to have the video cued up and to not say anything until she had the chance to speak with human resources. On June 22, 2015, Nancy Parent sent an email to John Slaughter, then county manager. That email states, “I have taken the liberty of deleting the employee’s name and I can say fairly surely that he/she {added} didn’t recognize the employee. Let me know if you need anything else, It’s all yours now J.” According to this former employee, the video was saved for Nancy to view.
Picon Press submitted a flurry of public records requests and even spoke with a county insider who assured us the key card data was not available from that time. We were told the key card system had transitioned from one vendor to another and the older data was not available. Disappointed, we still asked for the emails we thought would elicit the information we sought.
During the review of another email dump from the county, we stumbled upon the evidence necessary to publish this story. Again, we are never satisfied with inuendo, we seek evidence based in public records. That evidence came in the form of an “Access Denial Events” report which appears to be auto generated and sent to former county manager John Slaughter. This report, which we can only guess as to why it was sent to the former manager, lists all attempts by cardholders to access a door their security level is not programed to open. This restriction could be based on who the employee is, what their working hours are, or other custom restrictions applied.
Based on the Access Denial Report, there was only one county cardholder who, on June 20, 2015, was denied access to a 1001 E 9th Street door at 9:40 pm, Robert “Bob” Lucey. This denial report matches perfectly with what the employee authored in the email to Nancy Parent. And this former employee would say in 2022 that he/she knew that employee was Bob Lucey, although he/she did not recognize him that night. It was not until later did he/she realize who the cowboy was on the night of June 20, 2015, with a girl in the restroom. This seems plausible, given he/she worked nights and the commissioner had only been in office six months.
Denied Access Report by Picon Press Media LLC on Scribd
This is the where the cover up began. We have spoken with an individual in the Washoe County Human Resources division during 2015. That individual never knew of the matter and was in a position to know such things. Apparently only John Slaughter and folks in the office where the employee worked were privy, which appears by design. Nancy Parent, as a county employee, elected official, had a duty to report this matter to Human Resources, given employees and a contract employee were witness to sexual activity on the premises of a county building by a reported elected official. Yet Ms. Parent did nothing except drop it in County Manger John Slaughter’s lap. In fact, she seemed to assure the manager that the employee was clueless as to the mans identity, albeit acknowledging this man was an employee.
Further, the public records submitted should have produced the video in question, especially after it was saved on an employee’s drive and viewed by at least two other individuals. Yet, to date the county is claiming no such video exists.
We reached out to Nancy Parent for comment; however, she has refused to respond to any questions. After twice reaching out to Commissioner Bob Lucey for comment and not even the courtesy of a response, we decided not to ask him for comment. Should he read this and want to provide comment, we will gladly publish his comments.
We leave the readers to decide who was engaged in sexual activity at the office on June 20, 2015.