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December 10, 1999
By Brendan Riley
CARSON CITY (AP) - A lawyer for a Tahoe
casino is defending court restrictions on a videotape of a melee between
two women and several casino guards - limits imposed at a hearing
allegedly held with no advance notice to the women.
The Caesars Tahoe attorney didn't mention
the notice issue in asking the Nevada Supreme Court to reject a petition
from one of the women challenging the limits in efforts to beat
misdemeanor assault and battery charges.
Instead, lawyer Michael Johnson focused on what he termed a valid Justice
Court order to prevent a "circus-like spectacle" in the case involving
Aneka Leth Routsis, 35, of Incline Village, and Stephanie Landauer, 27, of
Kings Beach.
He added the ruling prevents Routsis from posting clips from the Sept.
5 tape "on her pornographic Internet website" or using the tape "as a
means of promoting her career as an adult entertainer."
Johnson also said Tahoe Justice of the Peace Steve McMorris' order,
later ratified by Justice of the Peace Mancuso of Incline Village, didn't
prevent the defendants or Routsis' lawyer, Mike Roeser, from getting a
copy of the tape.
The attorney said the order merely prohibits any recopying or
broadcasting, and that doesn't amount to what Roeser calls an impairment
of his defense efforts.
Roeser also said only the defense or the prosecutor could legally seek
such pretrial restrictions - but Johnson
insisted Caesars had the same rights.
According to Roeser, the tape shows Landauer being pushed face-first
into a wall - by accident, according to guards - and Routsis trying to
help her friend and being thrown, kicking and screaming, to the ground by
several security guards.
The two women had been dancing and drinking until after 4 a.m. at
Nero's, a Caesars nightclub. They were told to leave after moving from the
dance floor to "go-go" cages reserved for dancers working in the club.
Roeser's petition to the high court says there was no notice to the
women or to him in advance of a Sept. 15 hearing that resulted in
restrictions on the videotape.
Caesars' motion for the restrictions was filed a day earlier, and a
copy of the motion arrived at Roeser's office a day after the ruling.
McMorris then recused himself and asked Mancuso to take over. Mancuso
backed him up at an Oct. 1 hearing, saying the tape could turn the case
"into some sort of circus-like O.J. spectacle."
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