Las Vegas Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson says she threatened suspect in unsolved murders then kicked in his door

LAS VEGAS —  Las Vegas Township Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson told the Baltimore Post-Examiner she threatened Shane Valentine, a Las Vegas pimp who is a suspect in the 2016 unsolved double homicide of Sydney Land and Nehemiah ‘Neo” Kauffman and “kicked in his door.”

The interview was part of an extensive recorded-interview she gave to the Baltimore Post-Examiner last year. The judge is no longer talking to this news organization.

On January 21 the Baltimore Post-Examiner published, ‘Judge claims FBI refused information on police corruption probe after pressure from LVMPD.’

In that article and subsequent follow-up stories, Tobiasson:

*Stated she allowed her then underage daughter Sara to hang out then work in an after-hours strip club run by and frequented by Las Vegas pimps, underage high school girls and off duty police officers.

*Accused several people of committing the Land/Kauffman murders.

*Said she was receiving confidential information about the homicide investigation from a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) detective who originally was assigned to the case.

*Stated that Shane Valentine had attempted to recruit her daughter, Sara, as an underage prostitute while she was still attending Bishop Gorman High School.

*Stated that one of her daughter’s friends, who was a sophomore at the time also at Bishop Gorman   High School, and whose father was a LVMPD police officer, was a prostitute for Shane Valentine.

*Stated that another Las Vegas Township judge’s daughter was also a prostitute for another pimp.

*Accused several LVMPD officers of being corrupt.

*Asked Connie Land, the mother of Sydney Land, one of the victims in the murders, to turn over to her all text messages and other records pertaining to Land’s contact with the lead homicide detective investigating her daughter’s death.

* Told Connie Land that the FBI was investigating her daughter’s murder when in fact that was not true.

In our February 18 article, “Exclusive: Witness claims Las Vegas Township Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson offered her a bribe to implicate ‘innocent man’ in unsolved murder case,” Aryanne Zappia claimed that Tobiasson offered her a bribe to implicate Shane Valentine in the Land/Kauffman murders. Zappia said that she was interviewed by LVMPD Criminal Intelligence Bureau detectives, that she passed a polygraph examination, and was also interviewed by the FBI.

Tobiasson says she threatened Shane Valentine and kicked in his door

Here are some excerpts from last year’s interview with the judge or you can listen to the audio below:

Tobiasson: “You know, but uh I contacted his attorney because it was now going on a year that I had been calling Vice and that they had done zero.   Absolutely nothing.”

“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.

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.

(Tobiasson admits LVMPD Detective was providing information to her.)

“We know he was involved based on everything I was told by the original homicide detective, Grimmett.”

“The first detective who is investigating the case, thank God is someone who knows me and respects me, and I have a good relationship with, he tells me for the first three or four weeks after the murders while Shane is on the run, what information they have and what proof they have…”

“I told you about the detective that was originally on the case, he told me all the evidence they had that showed it was…”

“I’m advised of this by the detective working on this case that they have this information.”

“So Shane gets arrested in California, he gets extradited back to Vegas and he gets charged with the drive-by shooting and I find out from the homicide detective…”

“Then there’s a lieutenant who tells me that they believe he’s good for six hundred burglaries during that time frame where he was out on bail. That lieutenant was, it was actually a captain, I’m sorry, Captain Raybuck, Todd Raybuck, OK. He was a lieutenant when I knew him and was promoted to captain.”

On Friday the Baltimore Post-Examiner reached out to the LVMPD Homicide Division concerning a statement made to the BPE during Tobiasson’s recorded interview last year that led us to believe that Tobiasson may have withheld pertinent information about the Land/Kauffman murders from the police.

Under the police department’s policy, the Homicide Division is not allowed to comment on an investigation.

Questions remain

Why was the LVMPD providing confidential information relating to the double homicide of Sydney Land and Nehemiah Kauffman to Tobiasson?

What was it that Tobiasson wanted to know?

Is there more to her daughter’s involvement with Shane Valentine than Tobiasson had stated?

Why hasn’t anyone been held accountable for their misconduct?

How can a sitting judge continue to be on the bench after her questionable behavior?

Stay tuned to the Baltimore Post-Examiner for more revelations concerning this very troubling and disturbing case.

Doug Poppa

Doug authored over 135 articles on the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas Massacre, more than any other single journalist in the country. He investigates stories on corruption, law enforcement, and crime. Doug is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former police officer, deputy sheriff, and criminal investigator. Doug spent 20 years in the hotel/casino industry as an investigator and then as Director of Security and Surveillance. He also spent a short time with the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration. In 1986 Doug was awarded Criminal Investigator of the Year by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. In 1991 and 1992 Doug testified in court that a sheriff’s office official and the county prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence during the 1988 trial of a man accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Doug’s testimony led to a judge’s decision to order the release of the man from prison in 1992 and awarded him a new trial, in which he was later acquitted. As a result of Doug breaking the police “blue wall of silence,” he was fired by the county sheriff. His story was featured on Inside Edition, Current Affair and CBS News’ “Street Stories with Ed Bradley”. In 1992 after losing his job, at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Doug infiltrated a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont fortune heir and his wife. Doug has been a guest on national television and radio programs speaking on the stories he now writes as an investigative journalist. Catch Doug’s Podcast: @dougpoppa1