Death of attorney targeted in HOA case ruled suicide

Northern California authorities said Friday there was no foul play in the death of Las Vegas attorney David Amesbury, a defendant in the sweeping federal investigation into corruption at Las Vegas Valley homeowners associations.

"We're ruling it as a straight suicide," said Sgt. Rich Fevinger, chief deputy coroner for the Nevada County Sheriff's Office in California. "We've closed the case."

Fevinger said toxicology tests found no drugs or anything else suspicious in Amesbury's system.

Amesbury, 57, who pleaded guilty and was cooperating in the homeowners association investigation, hanged himself March 25 at his brother's property in Grass Valley, Calif. Authorities did not find a suicide note, Fevinger said.

Five days before Amesbury killed himself, the body of construction defects attorney Nancy Quon, a key target of the investigation, was discovered in the bathtub of her Henderson condominium.

In June, Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy ruled Quon's death a suicide. He said she died of drug and alcohol intoxication.

The federal investigation focuses on a massive scheme to take over 11 homeowners association boards and steer lucrative legal, construction and community management contracts to the conspirators.

So far, 26 people have pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and one has entered a guilty plea in a related bank fraud case.

Federal prosecutors expect to charge another dozen or so suspects by the end of the year.

At the time of his death, Amesbury was still recovering from an assault in Henderson months earlier that authorities said was not related to the federal investigation. Amesbury once ran a popular courthouse restaurant and was married to a former Clark County prosecutor.

Authorities suspected Quon, 51, had set fire to her Rhodes Ranch home in October 2010 in a botched suicide attempt to escape the pressure of the investigation.

Two other people who attracted interest in the high-profile homeowners association probe, also died under unusual circumstances.

Former Las Vegas police officer Christopher Van Cleef shot himself to death a few days after a September 2008 FBI raid in the investigation. Robbi Castro, a former Vistana homeowners association board member, died in 2010 of a drug overdose.

Investigators have publicly said that they do not think there was a conspiracy behind the four deaths.

In a related development on Friday, a jailed cooperating defendant in the federal investigation moved to gain her release.

Earlier this year, a federal judge refused to free Angela Esparza, 24, after her arrest on suspicion of soliciting prostitution on the Strip.

But on Friday, federal prosecutors and Esparza's lawyer, Jonathan Powell, filed court papers asking Senior U.S. District Judge Philip Pro to put her on house arrest and delay her Sept. 27 sentencing.

"The parties jointly desire that the defendant be released from custody to facilitate her cooperation with the government," prosecutors wrote.

Powell said local authorities never charged Esparza with prostitution after her March 30 arrest.

Pro told Esparza in May that her conduct had been "abysmal" since she pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in the homeowners investigation. Esparza also had failed random drug tests and faced warrants over a series of traffic violations.

Charles La Bella, the lead Justice Department lawyer prosecuting the homeowners case, had sought Esparza's release then, but Pro concluded that she needed to stay behind bars.

"You don't have the right to hold hostage the legal process because you're going to cooperate," Pro told Esparza at the time.

Esparza has admitted that, as a former community management company employee, she helped rig homeowners association elections.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.