Did Las Vegas Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson lie to the Judicial Commission about Baltimore Post-Examiner interview?

LAS VEGAS: Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson’s use of profanity, wearing a sweater with a vulgar slogan, violating multiple judicial code violations and creating what many called a hostile workplace may not be as damaging as the threats she reportedly made, which the special prosecutor pointed out during her two-day disciplinary hearing at the Boyd School of Law on the University of Nevada campus.

Tobiasson, along with Judge Amy Chelini, who is also facing similar charges that were being heard in the same mock courtroom on Monday and Tuesday, are facing possible suspension with pay for conduct of unbecoming a judge.

The Las Vegas media chose to ignore the threat allegation in its coverage of Tobiasson, but it’s the threat that could be viewed as an abuse of power by a sitting judge and could force the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline to rule harshly against her.

One threat she reportedly made was against convicted felon Shane Valentine in 2016 to his attorney, which Tobiasson admitted to during an interview last year with the Baltimore Post-Examiner.  Valentine’s attorney at the time was William Terry who is surprisingly now Tobiasson’s attorney. Terry can not testify against her now.

Special Prosecutor Tom Bradley saved that explosive charge for last when he specifically asked Tobiasson if she spoke to the Baltimore Post-Examiner in 2018 in a recorded interview with this national news publication. The Commission previously requested and obtained all of the Baltimore Post-Examiner articles on Tobiasson.

Tobiasson initially said she never threatened anyone when she was interviewed by a judicial investigator and claimed her words were not meant to be a threat during Bradley’s examination about what she told the Baltimore Post-Examiner.

Bradley: So, in your interview with the [Judicial] investigator, you denied telling Miss Kampling that your husband is ex-Metro, that you know detectives and you have friends with the FBI, correct?

Tobiasson: That conversation never happened.

Bradley: It is true your husband is ex-Metro?

Tobiasson: Sure is.

Bradley: It’s true that you know detectives?

Tobiasson: Of course I do, I’m a judge.

Bradley: It’s true you are friends with the FBI?

Tobiasson: No it’s not actually, I knew one FBI agent, but I’m no longer allowed to speak with him.

Bradley: So –, I think you’re also denying that you –, in the interview you said that, “I’ve never threatened somebody, with, my husband or the people I know,” correct?

Tobiasson: Correct.

Bradley: And you said that’s offensive?

Tobiasson: Correct, to be accused of that…

Bradley: And you told the investigator, the allegations that you’ve threatened people is completely out of the realm of comprehension, do you recall that?

Tobiasson: Yes, I do.

Bradley: “Because I would never engage in that kind of behavior”, that’s what you told him correct?

Tobiasson: Correct.

Bradley: But that’s not true, is it? In fact, you bragged about threatening people haven’t you.

Tobiasson:  No.

Bradley: Did you give an interview to the Baltimore Post-Examiner in 2018?

Terry: Objection, relevancy.

Bradley: I’m laying the foundation for the threat.

Terry: It has nothing to do with these proceedings.

Bradley: She denied she ever threatened someone, she admits that she

threatened someone in a newspaper article and there’s an audio recording of it.

Commissioner: I’m going to permit the question, go ahead.

Bradley: Did you give an interview to the Baltimore Post-Examiner in 2018?

Tobiasson: Very unfortunately yes.

Bradley: And they recorded the interview correct?

Tobiasson: It was a recording of a conversation that was never intended to be published.

Bradley: And mindful of the prior objection to your attorney, so, I’m not asking you to give me background about why you were upset with a certain individual, and we’ll just use his initials, S.V., OK.

Terry: I’m going to have continued objection to this whole line of questioning, as being irrelevant and not in conjunction with the proceedings that we are here on. The allegation is very specific, poses a substantial threat or serious harm to the public or the administration of justice.  Based upon that, it is irrelevant.

Bradley: Miss Kampling said that she was threatened by Judge Tobiasson.  Judge Tobiasson said that she’s never threatened anybody, I have the right to impeach her statement based upon her own words, it’s completely relevant to this case.

Terry: I don’t recall Miss Kampling being asked that question.  Merely because it’s in the interview doesn’t speak to its truthfulness.  If the special prosecutor purposely did not ask a question but is going to continue to rely on the transcripts, that only re-echoes the reason why we objected to the utilization of the transcripts.

Bradley: There was testimony here about the fact that she felt threatened.

Terry:  Felt threatened and being threatened are two different things.  I feel threatened in these proceedings because of what is going on in reference to my client, that doesn’t mean that you, anyone has a personal vendetta against me.

Commissioner: The impeachment question is completely relevant, I’ll admit it.

Bradley: Did you tell the Baltimore Post-Examiner that you were trying to prevent an individual from contacting a member of your family, so you called his attorney and said quote, “Hey, you might want to get your client a message that if he calls my family member again, I’m going to take care of it myself.”

Tobiasson: I know that’s what I said, and I also know that I was in a position where I begged for help and got none.  Not only hadn’t I not gotten help, but, I later learned…

Bradley: So your admitting, I’m not asking you…

Tobiasson: I didn’t threaten a person directly…

Commissioner: Hold on a second, don’t speak over each another.

Tobiasson: I did not threaten a person directly.

Bradley: You threatened through the attorney.

Tobiasson: This person was continuing to contact a member of my family on a day that…

Bradley: Excuse me, if you’re going to open the door to a bunch of questions of why this happened then I [unintelligible] so I would suggest that you answer my question which is did you make that threat, yes or no?

Tobiasson: It wasn’t a threat.

Bradley: OK.

All the Commission wants is the truth

What Bradley didn’t ask Tobiasson is if kicking in the door of Shane Valentine’s residence would be considered a threat.  Because she told the Baltimore Post-Examiner she did that during the May 7, 2018, recorded interview with this publication.

During that interview, Tobiasson also was fully aware that the interview was being recorded and it was going to be used for a published news story. Tobiasson gave her approval.  And at no time during the interview did Tobiasson say stop the recording or go off the record.

Here’s one excerpt:

BPE: If I end up doing a story after we talk, I’m going to use what you tell me in the recording as the basis for my story.

Tobiasson: Gotcha.

Six days after Judge Tobiasson gave that interview, on May 13, 2018, Tobiasson sent an email to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, “Doug I think we need to write the whole story, go public with it.”

Tobiasson went on the record with the Baltimore Post Examiner and alleged corruption within the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the Clark County District Attorney’s Office and made numerous on the record allegations against cops, judges, and their children.

One such cop, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Detective Mitchell Dosch, who Tobiasson made allegations against, discrediting his reputation, were found to be not factual when the Baltimore Post-Examiner conducted our own independent inquiry.

It was Judge Tobiasson, not the Baltimore Post-Examiner who alleged the corruption.

Tobiasson wanted to get her story out and the Baltimore Post-Examiner did just that.

Prior to the Baltimore Post-Examiner even talking to Tobiasson, she told a retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detective in a text message that the Baltimore Post-Examiner already published in a prior story, “I would like to get it out there ASAP.  I would have done this immediately after I was outed to Metro about my contact with the FBI.  As a courtesy to their investigation, I did not go with my original plan which was to write it all out and send it to every news agency in the country.”

In a May 13, 2018 email to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, Tobiasson wrote, “Thank you certainly seems inadequate. I think I still can’t believe that somebody is willing to go to bat for me and expose the ugliness and enormity of it all. I have always believed that if I could get this national, someone would pay attention.  One of the things I had said in [Las Vegas Attorney] Jess Marchese’s office when I met with one of his clients, who though a really bad guy on paper, is actually a far better human than any of the people involved in these stories, was that I was going to write up the entire story and send it to every news agency in the country.”

In another 2018 email message to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, Tobiasson wrote, “I’m pissed. I’m all in!!! I’ll keep writing. Maybe I should just tell it from my perspective like I planned to do six months ago, and you can print it and distribute it.”

Tobiasson, after Las Vegas KLAS-TV’s 8NewsNow I-Team aired a segment on April 13, 2018, of an interview she gave them, she then filed a formal complaint accusing the I-Team of misleading her because she supposedly never intended to appear on the air.

In a February 22, 2019 email sent by George Knapp of 8NewsNow I-Team to Connie Land, the mother of Sydney Land, one of the victims in the now three-year-old unsolved Land/Kauffman murders, Knapp wrote, “If there is new info about the murder or the murder investigation, I’m all ears, but I am not interested in rehashing the same allegations made by the judge, especially after she filed formal statements accusing KLAS of misleading her because she supposedly never intended to appear on camera or on the air.  I have zero interest in going down that road again.”

That is puzzling because this is what Tobiasson told the Baltimore Post-Examiner during our interview with her about 8NewsNow:

BPE: I saw the interview that you did with Channel 8 I-Team. Is everything that’s on that interview is what you told them or was that an edited version of your interview?

Tobiasson: Oh, no, that interview, that tape was never intended to go public. I made that tape to, in the event that I was dead and couldn’t tell my story. My attorney wanted me to videotape my story, it’s about four hours, maybe five, in the event that someday I needed it for my protection or in the event that I wasn’t around to tell the story.  My attorney tells me, I think we need to do this story.  He doesn’t tell me why; he says I think we need to air the story. I said, I agree. I said I don’t know what the fuck we’re waiting for, let’s do it, I wanted to do it six months ago. So, they aired the story.

Sounds very similar to what Tobiasson did to the Baltimore Post-Examiner after we published her story on January 21, 2019.

Tobiasson complained by sending emails to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, “There are certain parts of this that are going to ruin me.  I never anticipated you would just put the entire conversation in the article.  I’m mortified.  I already have a discipline complaint.  Can you delete the parts about me contacting his attorney please?  Contacting Shanes’ attorney.  Judicial discipline will use this to remove me from the bench.  You told me you were transcribing it, not that you were just going to print the entire thing.  I’m toast.”

My response to  Tobiasson was, “I don’t understand.  What did you think this was going to be?  I told you I was doing the story. You said you wanted to get this out.”

The next day, January 22, 2019,  Tobiasson sent her last email to the Baltimore Post-Examiner, “I am imploring you to take the article down to lessen the damage to me,”  and then she shut down all communication with the Baltimore Post-Examiner. 

Just what did Tobiasson think was going to happen when you give an interview with investigative journalists about a corruption story that by her own admission numerous times, she wanted to get out.

When Tobiasson testified under oath on Tuesday that, “It was a recording of a conversation that was never intended to be published,” her statement is in direct contradiction with the facts and her own statements to this publication.

Tobiasson, Shane Valentine, William Terry and the ‘threat’

The Commission asked Tobiasson: “Did you tell the Baltimore Post-Examiner that you were trying to prevent an individual from contacting a member of your family, so you called his attorney and said quote, “Hey, you might want to get your client a message that if he calls my family member again, I’m going to take care of it myself.”

The individual in question was Valentine, who Tobiasson claimed tried to recruit her daughter into prostitution.  The attorney in question was William Terry, Valentine’s attorney at the time.  Terry is now Tobiasson’s attorney representing her at the Commission’s hearing.

Excerpt from Tobiasson’s recorded interview: So I contact Shane Valentine’s attorney, it’s about July now of 2016 and because I know the cops at this point aren’t going to do anything.  I call his attorney and I said, “hey you might want to get your client a message that, if he calls my daughter again I’m going to take care of it myself.”  So, he does, he gives him the message. You know, we really don’t want to report that.  But I was at the point if this guy is going to continue to mess with my daughter, clearly the police don’t give a shit, they’re not going to protect her.  I spent a year trying to get them to do some sort of independent investigation and shut these places down.”

Tobiasson said, “we really don’t want to report that.”  The Baltimore Post- Examiner did not delete that comment from the story we published because Tobiasson was a sitting judge who on-the-record made a statement that she threatened a defendant through his attorney and she was told the Baltimore Post-Examiner would decide what would be reported – not her.

Tobiasson went even further later in the interview:

BPE: Are you married to a Metro cop?

Tobiasson: He’s retired, and no, he didn’t help me.

BPE: He’s not helping you?

Tobiasson: He hasn’t helped me through any of this.  I was the one who went to Shane Valentine’s house, kicked in the door.  I was the one who went to the cops.  I was the one who followed my daughter.  I was the one who made sure she was safe.  No, he didn’t help me.

(Note to the Commission: Is kicking in the door proper conduct for a sitting judge?)

BPE: Why not, what does he think about all of this.

Tobiasson:  I can’t answer that question for you, because he probably thought I was nuts, because he probably trust my daughter rather than trying to save her, because we’re just two very different kinds of people.  He’d rather put his head in the sand like everybody else and that’s just the way it is.

BPE: And is his name Tobiasson, that’s his name?

Tobiasson: Yeah, his first name’s Todd, last name’s Tobiasson.  He’s a nice guy, he’s just you know, he doesn’t, he’s like ninety percent of the rest of the population, he’s a sheep.

Where is Terry’s complaint against Tobiasson?

Did William Terry, Shane Valentine’s attorney at the time, ever make a complaint against Tobiasson concerning the threat to his client.  If not, then why not.  Tobiasson even said, “So, he does, he gives him the message.”

Is that proper conduct for a judge and a defense attorney in Nevada? Is Terry’s representation of Tobiasson present a conflict?

In our October 11, 2019 article, ‘Shane Valentine’s mother calls Las Vegas Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson a ‘vigilante,’ we reported that we conducted an interview with Valentine’s mother Deanna who confirmed Bill Terry was Valentine’s attorney:

BPE: She told me that your son, Dominique Thompson and Frankie Zappia are the three people that Metro Homicide told her executed Neo and Sydney.  She also told me that, this was on the record in a recorded interview, that she threatened Shane through his attorney, and I don’t know what attorney it was…

Mrs. Valentine: Bill Terry.

BPE: Was it Bill Terry?

Mrs. Valentine: Uh huh.

Valentine also claimed her car was damaged but the Baltimore Post-Examiner has no supporting evidence to verify the allegation.

Mrs. Valentine: Somebody told me that she’s the one who kicked in my car.

Poppa: When did you hear that?

Mrs. Valentine: A few months ago, probably about six months ago.  I always wondered why my car was, and they said the judge kicked it in.

Poppa: Where do they think she kicked it in, where was the car?

Mrs. Valentine: I don’t know, I have no idea.  I mean I don’t know when it was or whatever, but I finally like, somebody, she kicked the car and she’s on a mission, she’s on a witch hunt for Shane.  She shouldn’t be anything involved with him because she had a daughter that had some involvement somehow and you know, yeah, so she’s been on a witch hunt for him, she, I, now I’m going to get a lawyer.  You can let her know I’m going to get a lawyer because I’m coming after her right now. No telling what she’s saying because she’s on a mission.

How concerned was Tobiasson for her daughter’s safety?  

Tobiasson said that she was concerned for her daughters safety, that was why she threatened Shane Valentine, however that statement seems odd when juxtaposed with the fact that Tobiasson put her own daughter’s life in jeopardy.  Tobiasson allowed her then under-age 16 year-old daughter Sarah, then a student at Bishop Gorman High School, to hang out and frequent a clothing store, Top Notch, that Tobiasson claimed was a front for an after-hours unlicensed club.

Tobiasson: About July of 2015, my daughter starts hanging out at a place, in what we call Chinatown here in Las Vegas, it’s called Top Notch. It was a hip-hop clothing store that when I looked into it, I realized it was not really a clothing store, it was a front for an unlicensed club and also on a regular basis, had young, local high school girls hanging out in the club dancing. There were stripper poles in the back of the club. There was a full bar. There were, at night if you watched the alley behind the club you would see the people come in. You know typical Mercedes, Range Rovers, Bentleys, Rolls Royce, whatever. I gathered some additional information, find out that the two men who were running this club, both are convicted pimps and one of whom is having a case in front of me. He was a 34-year-old.

Tobiasson: I actually, subsequently learned that there were cops who hung out at Top Notch, at the club.

BPE: With the under-age girls?

Tobiasson: Uh, huh.

My daughter at some point says that she is going to start working there and I tell her, you know, I make it very clear it is not a legitimate business and I make it very clear that she’s risking a lot for our family by hanging out with these kind of people.

I actually liked Marlon, Marlon actually protected my daughter, now listen, if my daughter was eighteen, I guarantee he wouldn’t have, but he use to tell my daughter all the time, like I had respect for your mom, she always treated us with respect when we were in the court with her.

BPE: Who is this guy, which guy is this,?

Tobiasson: He was a pimp. He was the one who owned Top Notch, but he had, actually, he wouldn’t let my daughter drink, he wouldn’t let her party, he wouldn’t let her sit back there and smoke the hookahs. He let her hang out there, but according to her, he kind of shielded her from the other stuff. Now, you know, I don’t think the guy deserves any freaking awards, but I do appreciate the fact that he didn’t beat my daughter up and put her out on the Strip. He protected my daughter more than the cops did I can tell you that. That’s pretty sad.

What is Tobiasson thinking?

Yes, this is one of our Las Vegas judges at her finest hour.  Allowing her under-age daughter to hang out and then work in a what I would have called when I was on the job, a presently illegal establishment, and Tobiasson appreciated that this pimp didn’t beat her daughter up and/or put her out on the Las Vegas Strip as a prostitute. Pretty sad, worse than that, it’s disgusting.

According to Las Vegas Justice Court records obtained by the Baltimore Post-Examiner, Tobiasson was the presiding judge on Marlon Brown’s preliminary hearing in October of 2014.   Tobiasson was fully aware of Brown’s criminal history.

Are her actions contributing to the delinquency of a minor?

Tobiasson and Terry silent on Land/Kauffman murders 

As the Baltimore Post-Examiner has reported in several stories, Tobiasson claimed that Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman, who were both found shot in the head in their Southwest Las Vegas apartment on October 27, 2016, were the wrong two people who were murdered. She claimed that she and her daughter were meant to be killed.  Tobiasson has never explained why she believes that.

Tobiasson: And they know that the fact that they outed me, got two people killed.  It wasn’t the two people they were trying to get killed, me and my daughter, but it got two people killed. 

Tobiasson’s daughter Sarah was friends with Nehemiah Kauffman.

On Monday during the first day of the Commission’s hearings, during a break, I approached Tobiasson and her attorney Bill Terry outside.  I identified myself at which time Tobiasson quickly turned and walked away.  I told Terry that Tobiasson said Sydney Land and Neo Kauffman were murdered but it was supposed to be her and her daughter.  I asked Terry if he would comment on Tobiasson’s behalf.  Terry said he did not want to talk to me.  I said, “so that’s a no comment,” to which he replied, “It’s not no comment, I don’t want to talk to you.”

When I went back inside, Tobiasson’s husband, retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sergeant Todd Tobiasson approached me and told me to stay away from his wife that she didn’t want to talk to me.

By her own admission, Judge Tobiasson stated that she knows why the murders happened.

So that aspect of the investigation remains one more mystery in the now three-year-old unsolved Land/Kauffman double homicide.  At least for the moment, that is.

Tobiasson calls cops ‘motherfuckers’ 

That cuss word, “motherfucker” was heard more than once during the two days of testimony at the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline hearing this week.

The Baltimore Post-Examiner recently obtained an October 7, 2017 text message that was sent by Judge Melanie Tobiasson to Connie Land.

As we previously reported in several stories this year, Tobiasson befriended Land in 2017 and in a bizarre series of events, convinced  Land that the police were corrupt, couldn’t be trusted, that the police were conducting surveillance on Land and that they needed to buy burner phones to communicate.

Tobiasson eventually convinced Land to send her all of her text messages with Homicide Detective Mitchell Dosch, for reasons to this day that remain unknown on why she wanted them. Was she interested in the case or trying to protect someone?

Land broke off contact with Tobiasson in late 2017 after she realized that Tobiasson “had played her.”

 

The text message read: I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t save your daughter.  I tried.  I really, really did.  The reality of what happened to her and your family because of these motherfuckers.  Not the pimps.  The cops.  They had everything they needed to get these predators BEFORE this happened.  I’m a god damn judge who did all of their work for them and they STILL didn’t care!!  You know why?? Because they don’t think anyone will ever figure it out and they are as bad as everyone has ever said.  WORSE.  What I wonder is how they manage to get the female detectives to turn a blind eye.  I’M SO FUCKING MAD!!

Just a question to the Commission: Is that proper conduct for a sitting judge to call the police ‘motherfuckers?’

‘Only death will free them from my sights’

Six days before Tobiasson sent the preceding text message to Connie Land, she had received a text message from Tobiasson on October 1, 2017 that read, “Yeah, I will never see that money, but she has an enemy for life.  I won’t obsess any more or let her ruin my life, but I’m patient and I never forget.  Just ask Shane Valentine, Jeff Wagonseller, Domo, Frost and many others.  Only death will free them from my sights.”

Here is some background on what that text might mean. Tobiasson is upset with an interior designer’s work and the designer was already is paid. And she is upset that she will never get the money back. It is unclear if she is talking about her “death” or someone else’s “death.”

Shane Valentine is a Las Vegas pimp and convicted felon who is currently incarcerated in Nevada State Prison for charges of burglary and shooting into an occupied dwelling.

Dominique “Domo” Thompson, a Las Vegas pimp and convicted felon is currently incarcerated in federal prison on weapons charges.

Anthony “Frost” Galasi, is a convicted felon in Nevada for pandering.

A May 4, 2000, Las Vegas Sun article, Wagonseller quits post amid sex allegations, stated that then-Bishop Gorman High School boys basketball coach Jeff Wagonseller has resigned amid six-year-old allegations of sexual misconduct with a former student.

According to the Sun article, a former Bishop Gorman student, filed a civil lawsuit alleging that when she was 16, she and Wagonseller had a sexual relationship and was seeking unspecified damages. Wagonseller was the head coach at Bishop Gorman for nine years and prior to that served as an assistant coach.

‘All your current wounds are 100% self-inflicted’ 

The Baltimore Post-Examiner has obtained an email message from a confidential source that was sent by Mike Zahara, a local blogger, and friend of Melanie Tobiasson, on February 21, 2019, to Tobiasson.

The email reads in part: “You’ve done a number of things correctly, but a greater number of things incorrectly from the moment you went to the I-Team Mel.  You’ve screwed your own self as all of your current wounds are 100% self-inflicted.”  “Your letting Poppa publish the other day and today without comment from you was the exact wrong thing to do…”   “He had an obligation to seek response from you about the accusations against you in both stories which could end your career and disbar you.”

So Tobiasson is spreading stories?

On July 7, 2019, I received an email from Mike Zahara, stating that Judge Tobiasson was spreading stories about me that nobody was believing.

I responded to Zahara, “So Tobiasson is spreading dirt on me.  That’s interesting because there is no dirt, have no problem talking to anyone about anything.  My entire life is posted on social media and news articles going back thirty years, much posted by myself, so that doesn’t bother me.  What Tobiasson doesn’t understand is that I neither love her nor hate her.  She went on the record with an investigative journalist, I wrote the story that she wanted to get out.  I have the emails, and then she didn’t like some of the content.  That’s too bad.  Her story was the primer for others who contacted me and went on the record and like it or not, they have the right to get their story out.”

On December 4, I received another email from Mike Zahara that read in part: “Yes, Tobiasson said and did things which do not fit the narrative.  She wishes her  daughter’s involvement with and long friendships with many of these persons to be portrayed to the public.”

“That Dana Gentry (Las Vegas reporter) indulged her to such a degree was not helpful to those wishes ever coming true.”

“Sarah is no innocent here.”

“Missing of course is her other parent and his complete silence is the most bizarre aspect of Mel’s telling of this tale because he’s not just any parent but also a long-serving, highly regarded retired Sgt. of Metro, and you’ve never pressed her about him.”

Later that day, Zahara sent me another email with a very nice comment: “ You’re not nearly as good as you believe you are Doug.  This is fact.  Your own writing proves again and again and again.

They must truly believe I was born yesterday.