July 27, 2026

The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - Part 7

The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - Part 7
The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - Part 7
Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast
The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - Part 7
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Season 3

You might think that 30 years after the murder of Daniel Mendoza, this case would finally fade from the news, with Ron Mortensen serving a life sentence, but you'd be wrong. Continual appeals and getting in front of the right judge got us to a shocking place 30 years later.

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For nearly thirty years. Ron Mortensen said the jury never

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heard the full story. He said Christopher Brady was protected,

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that the evidence had been mishandled, and that the state

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askedurors to trust a man who had every reason to

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save himself. In some ways, he was right, but.

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A trial can have real flaws without making a convicted

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man innocent, and a guilty man can use the truth

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about someone else's misconduct to turn himself into the victim

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for Daniel's murder. The legal questions are complicated, but the

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moral questions remain painfully clear.

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Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas

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true crime podcast where we focus on missing persons, unsolved cases,

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and the number one cause of homicide in the Las

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Vegas area, domestic violence. I'm your host Sean.

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And I'm your co host John.

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Welcome to part seven of our series on the murder

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of Daniel Mendoza. If you have not listened to parts

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one through six, yet we strongly recommend going back and

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starting there. This is a case where the details build

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on each other, and at this point in the story

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we are deep in the legal aftermath. We recommend you

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start at sinspod dot Co Slash one twenty nine. Last week,

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we talked about what happened after Ron Mortenson's conviction, Ramone's

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civil lawsuit, the fight for civilian police oversight, Christopher Brady's

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attempt to return to law enforcement, and Ramone's devastating statement

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that years later, police were still harassing his youngest son.

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Part six was about whether Las Vegas really changed after

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Daniel's murder. This week, we turned back to Ron Mortenson.

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While the city debated reform, while Christopher Brady faced a

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federal civil rights case, while Daniel's family fought for accountability

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in a civil suit. Mortenson kept insisting that he was

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not the man who fired the shots. In the years

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that followed, some of the points he made in his

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appeals raised real questions.

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Before we go any further, we want to be clear

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about where we are coming from, based on the eyewitness testimony,

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the physical evidence, the position of the men in the

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truck and the fact that the murder weapon was Mortenson's gone.

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We believe the jury did not make a mistake in

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convicting Ron Mortensen for Daniel Mendoza's murder. However, we also

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believe that Christopher Brady should have been prosecuted for his

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role in what happened that night. Brady's misconduct doesn't make

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Mortenson innocent, but the decision not to charge Brady left

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a space in this case for doubt to seep in.

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All The unanswered questions about Brady and the flaws and

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the investigation became part of Mortenson's argument and another reason

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to say the jury had not heard the full story.

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Mortenson's appeals painted him as a victim of Metro from

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the beginning. His defense was built on one claim Christopher

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Brady was the shooter and Metro protected Brady because he

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was connected. That argument kept coming back year after year,

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motion after motion, hearing after hearing.

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Just a quick recap, we believe that the state's case

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against Mortenson was not weak. At trial, Prosecutors had eyewitnesses

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who described the shooter as being the passenger in the truck,

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a larger white man wearing glasses. Mortenson was admittedly sitting

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in the passenger seat, and he was larger than Brady

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and wore glasses. The gun that fired the fatal shots

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was Mortensen's sig Sour. According to the state's firearm expert,

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the physical evidence supported the theory that the gun had

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been fired from outside of the passenger side of the truck,

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and that it was likely the truck was moving when

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the shots were fired. Mortenson never accepted the jury's verdict.

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At sentencing, he apologized to Daniel's family, but he still

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maintained that Brady was the shooter. He stated in court

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that he was a scapegoat for years of misconduct inside Metro,

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the rookie officer chosen to take the fall for the

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department's larger problems. That word scapegoat became central to the

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way Mortensen presented himself for the next thirty years. In

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August of nineteen ninety eight, more than a year after

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Mortenson's conviction, Frank Kremin was preparing the first major appeal,

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and the argument was essentially the same one he had

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made a trial. The jury, he said, had not heard

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the full story about Christopher Brady and about the evidence

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that might have made the state's key witness look very different.

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One of the clearest examples was Brady's truck. As we

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have already discussed, the truck was a critical piece of

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evidence for both sides because the case turned on what

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was physically possible for Brady to do or to not

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do while inside the cab, but also, since Brady had

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control of his truck, he had made modifications to it

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before the trial started. While it was eventually restored to

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the way it looked the night of the murder. As

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we dis discussed, that just led to more unanswered questions

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and cast more suspicion on Brady.

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On appeal, Kremen argued that the changes to the truck

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mattered because they made it harder to test visibility movement

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and whether Brady could have reached across the cab in

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a way that Mortenson described. He later summed up the

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defense's frustration by saying that after a lot of effort,

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the truck was finally delivered to him, but it was

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delivered late and changed, with the tint removed, the clothing laundered,

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and the seat already taken out. Then he asked the

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question that became the theme of the appeal, who was

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telling the truth. The courts did not agree that the

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changes to the truck were enough to overturn the verdict.

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The jury had seen the truck with the custom seat reinstalled,

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jurors were allowed to sit inside it, and the defense

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was able to argue that Brady could have reached across

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the cab if the seat was positioned in a certain way.

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Later courts concluded that Mortensen had not shown enough prejudice

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that the changes to the truck justified a new trial.

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But even though the legal argument failed, the optics were

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still terrible. Even though the messy investigation does not erase

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the eyewitness as another evidence, they created an opening, and

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because Brady was never prosecuted, every flaw around Brady became

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something Mortenson could point to and say, this is why

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you should have believed me.

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Instead, that same argument applied to the evidence the jury

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did not hear or heard only partially about Brady himself.

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Since Brady was the witness the state chose to build

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their case around, his credibility became one of the most

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important issues in Mortenson's appeals. As we discussed in Part five,

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excluded or limited evidence admitted about Brady involved internal affairs

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complaints and allegations about Brady's conduct as an officer, including

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claims that he had pulled a gun on people or

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roughed people up. Some of those allegations were unproven, and

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the trial judge limited them because the court did not

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find them reliable enough or relevant enough to put in

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front of the jury. There was also Carrie Morris had

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accused Brady of sexual misconduct during a traffic stop, an

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allegation that was never charged and the prosecutors viewed with

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credibility concerns. But after Mortenson's conviction, it became clear that

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Morris had described Brady using language that sounded strikingly similar

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to something Mortenson claimed Brady said after Daniel's shooting. Mortenson

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testified that Brady told him I told you I was

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an evil man. I am evil. Morris said that Brady

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had used similar language with her for the defense. That

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mattered because it was such an unusual phrase, and if

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Mortenson had made up the evil man line, Morris's separate

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account could look like corroboration of at least that part

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of his story. It is another element to show that

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the jury had not heard everything that might have changed

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how they understood Christopher Brady. However, the courts were not persuaded,

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finding that Morris's statement did not have a close enough

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connection to Daniel's murder and probably would not have produced

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a different result at a new trial. But for Morton

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since supporters, it became one more piece of the same

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larger claim that the state had asked the jury to

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trust Brady without letting the jury see the full picture

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of who Brady might have been.

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The prosecution had a similar issue with Mark Barry. During

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Mortenson's trial in nineteen ninety seven, Frank Kremen said he

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received an anonymous call about Christopher Brady. The caller claimed

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that Brady had once told fellow officer Mark Barry that

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he wanted to do a drive by shooting. At the time,

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prosecutors said an investigator had spoken with Barry and Barry

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had called the allegation nonsense, so the jury never heard it.

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In July of nineteen ninety eight, though after Mortensen had

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been convicted, Mark Barry testified before a federal grand jury

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investigating possible civil rights violations in Daniel's death. As you

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might recall from our earlier episode, Barry testified to that

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grand jury that Brady had mentioned doing a drive by

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more than once, but he didn't take Brady serious. Essentially,

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what he said was that once this thing Brady had

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joked about actually happened, he'd put two and two together.

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That testimony became a major appellate issue because it went

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directly to Brady's credibility and possibly to his motive. In

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August of nineteen ninety eight, the issue is serious enough

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that District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski ordered an evidentiary hearing to

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determine whether Mortenson deserved a new trial. Legal experts quoted

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at the time said that if Barry's testimony was credible,

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it could be important. It could raise serious questions about Brady,

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not just as a bad witness, but as a person

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who may have talked about doing the very type of

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crime that later happened. The ACLU of Nevada also weighed in.

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Gary Peck said he didn't want to prejudge the case,

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but if the accounts of the federal grand jury testimony

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were accurate, Mortenson should have an opportunity for the evidence

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to come out.

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In October of nineteen ninety eight, the hearing on Mortenson's

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request for a new trial was held in front of

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District Judge Joseph Pavlkowski. Frank Kremin leaned into the testimony

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from officer Mark Barry. Barry did not say Brady had

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ever laid out a specific plan, and he described the

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comments as the kind of thing said while drinking, joking,

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blowing off steam, and talking about work. However, Barry was

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not the only officer whose testimony raised questions about the

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culture in Metro. Another officer testified that Brady and other

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officers sometimes talked about certain neighborhoods, including the area near

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McKellar's Circle, as if they were filled with worthless or

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bad people. A former officer, William Butler, said some of

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those conversations were jokes or venting after stressful shifts, but

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he also described talk about certain areas needing to be

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napalmed and jokes about contract hits to wipe out certain

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people in certain neighborhoods. For Kremen, this all suggested that

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Daniel's neighborhood was not just a random place Brady and

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Mortensen ended up in that night, but a place some

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officers had already talked about with content. We're going to

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pause here for a quick break, but we'll be right

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back to discuss an issue with the physical evidence that

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we haven't yet talked about during this series.

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Tory Johnson, the police firearms expert, had been one of

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the major witnesses at Mortenson's trial. Johnson had written notes

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during the trial that were apparently not turned over to

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the defense until later through attorneys involved in the Mendoza

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family's civil lawsuit that we discussed last week. Johnson's notes

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involved the fatal bullet. Because the bullet that killed Daniel

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passed through his body and was never recovered, Johnson had

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written notes speculating about whether the bullet might have come

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from a gun more powerful than Mortenson's three eighty sig

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sour to Kremen. That opened the door to another question,

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whether the jury had heard everything it should have heard

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about the ballistics evidence. Johnson testified that he had been

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concerned about the issue during the trial, but he also

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denied that he meant that the three to eighty could

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not have fired the fatal shot. He explained that the

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caliber of the bullet cannot necessarily be to herman from

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the size of a wound, and prosecutors argued that the

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new ballistics questions did not amount to a new theory

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of the murder. Deputy District Attorney Gary Gyman argued that

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none of the new material justified a new trial. He

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said the state's case had been supported by five eye

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witnesses and was not built solely on Brady's credibility. It

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was not enough to undo the jury's verdict.

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At the end of the hearing, Judge Pavlikowski took the

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matter under advisement. As Mortensen was let out of the

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courtroom in chains, he silently made his own argument for

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the press and the cameras in the courtroom. According to

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the Review Journal, he flashed a sign with the words

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metro political prisoner. That image captured the appeal in one strange,

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uncomfortable moment, legitimate questions being raised inside the courtroom while

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Mortensen tried to cast himself as the victim of a

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police department conspiracy. Later that month, Judge Pavlkowski denied Mortenson's

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request for a new trial, but the very issue did

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not go away. Mortenson took the argument to the Nevada

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Supreme Court, where the justices later agreed that Barry's testimony

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had not been discoverable with reasonable diligence before trial, but

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still concluded that it was not likely to produce a

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different result. So the door stayed closed at least for then.

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But the argument had been preserved, and the same question

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00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:22.159
would keep following the case for decades. If Brady was

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the state's key witness, how much did the jury have

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the right to know about what he allegedly said and

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done before deciding whether to believe him.

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In nineteen ninety nine, Mortenson brought forth a challenge based

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on one of the witnesses against him, Reuben Ramirez, during

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the trial in nineteen ninety seven, Ramirez was one of

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the eyewitnesses who identified Mortenson as the shooter. He had

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not identified Mortenson in the first photo lineup, but after

245
00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:49.399
seeing Mortenson's photo, he identified him in a physical lineup

246
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the next day and then again at trial. His testimony

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was important because he said the passenger signaled for people

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to come closer and then fired from the window. He

249
00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.320
also said he couldn't see the driver clearly because the

250
00:14:02.360 --> 00:14:06.039
passenger blocked his view. As a part of his pursuit

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00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:09.000
of a new trial, Mortensen's legal team argued that the

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state had failed to disclose Ramirez's criminal history. The allegedly

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00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:18.159
undisclosed information included several incidents, including a nineteen ninety six

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misdemeanor for firearm driving case, a nineteen ninety seven domestic

255
00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:26.799
violence complaint, an April nineteen ninety seven conspiracy to commit

256
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:31.000
burglary attempted robbery case, and an April nineteen ninety seven

257
00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:35.840
citation for possession of a bludgeoning device. However, a March

258
00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:39.360
nineteen ninety seven alleged incident where Ramirez had sold drugs

259
00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:42.440
to an undercover agent was key to the defense's argument.

260
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The incident had led to federal charges against Ramirez. The

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00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:50.159
buye happened before the trial, but did not result in

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Ramirez's arrest until after the trial. The defense argument was

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that Ramirez was an important eye witness and the jury

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should have known more about his potential crimes because it

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could have affected his credibility. Ramirez had testified that on

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the night Daniel was killed, he had gone outside to

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smoke a cigarette and had not been drinking or using drugs,

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and neither he nor his associates had a gun. The

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00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:16.679
defense theory was basically, if Ramirez was involved in a

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00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:20.080
meth sale before trial, the jury should have known that

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when weighing his credibility, the arrest also suggested that he

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00:15:23.840 --> 00:15:26.960
had reasons to testify and cooperate with the state. The

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00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:30.279
Nevada Supreme Court rejected that argument. The court said that

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Ramirez's criminal history didn't matter because the jury already knew

275
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Ramirez was an Eighteenth Street gang member and knew the

276
00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:40.279
gang was involved in drug related activity. All of his

277
00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:43.440
criminal history was available before trial, except for the undercover

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00:15:43.559 --> 00:15:47.000
drug buy that resulted in arrest. After the trial, additional

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00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:49.919
information about Ramirez his criminal history would not likely have

280
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.480
changed the verdict given the evidence against him. In summary,

281
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Mortenson's appeals often focused on each individual flaw Brady Barry, Morris,

282
00:15:59.279 --> 00:16:03.840
the truck, Ramirez, and on and on, and the argument

283
00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:05.960
that if the jury had known, they would have found

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him not guilty. But the state's response always amounted to

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00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:11.960
the fact that no single flaw in the case changed

286
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:15.480
the overall picture. No single witness or missing detail could

287
00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.519
overcome the eyewitness descriptions, the physical evidence, and the use

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of Mortenson's very own weapon.

289
00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:24.679
For a long time, the courts agreed with the state.

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The conviction remained in place, and Mortensen stayed in prison

291
00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:32.360
as appeal. After appeal failed, in November of nineteen ninety eight,

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00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:36.159
the RJ interviewed Mortensen from prison. At the time, he

293
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was in an Ohio maximum security facility far from Las Vegas,

294
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living in what he called his living hell. Mortenson said

295
00:16:44.679 --> 00:16:46.919
he woke up in a small cell, put on a

296
00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.080
light blue prison uniform, and went to work caring for

297
00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:53.120
flowers and plants. He said the flowers were his only

298
00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:57.360
mental salvation from an otherwise monotonous prison life. He also

299
00:16:57.399 --> 00:17:00.960
said being a former police officer made prison danger. He

300
00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:04.680
said the other prisoners around him, men convicted of murder, rape,

301
00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:07.759
drug offenses, gang crimes, do not know that he had

302
00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:09.680
been a cop, and that he had to keep it

303
00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:13.480
a secret for his own safety. During that interview, he

304
00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:17.279
continued to claim innocence. Mortensen said he was not a killer.

305
00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:19.839
He said he did not go to Daniel's neighborhood to

306
00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.720
harass anyone. He said he had no choice but to

307
00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:25.640
go along that night because of Brady, and that Brady

308
00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:29.160
was the person who fired the shots. In this case,

309
00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:32.880
the question of innocence is complicated and layered. There is

310
00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:35.720
the idea of legal innocence. Did Mortenson fire the shots

311
00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:37.799
and did the state prove first degree murder beyond a

312
00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:41.279
reasonable doubt. But there's also the question of moral responsibility.

313
00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:44.640
What responsibility does a police officer carry when he participates

314
00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:47.720
in a night of harassment that ends with an innocent

315
00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:48.680
young man dead.

316
00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:52.599
In late nineteen ninety eight, Mortensen responded to the interview

317
00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:55.440
with a letter to the Review Journal, where he accused

318
00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:57.960
the newspaper of leaving out much of what he had said.

319
00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:02.039
He accused Metrahama side detectives of protecting Brady and using

320
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:04.640
smoke and mirrors, and he said he was set up

321
00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:08.480
as a symbolic sacrifice to protect Brady. He wrote that

322
00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:11.559
he blamed Christopher Brady for destroying his life and ending

323
00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:17.039
Daniel Mendoza's. Years passed, claims were raised and rejected, more

324
00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:20.799
appeals were filed than denied. Brady's federal case came and went,

325
00:18:21.640 --> 00:18:24.400
The Review Board was created. The public moved on to

326
00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:28.359
other scandals, other headlines, other fights with Metro, but Mortenson

327
00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:32.400
wouldn't stop. By the mid two thousands, his long campaign

328
00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.480
to prove his innocence went off the rails in a

329
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.920
bizarre turn. We're going to pause here for our second break,

330
00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:40.440
but we'll be back to discuss the desperate axe Mortenson

331
00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:43.640
allegedly took to get out of prison, which involved scamming

332
00:18:43.799 --> 00:18:47.319
his own grandmother. In March of two thousand and five,

333
00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:49.920
Mortenson had been brought back to Las Vegas from the

334
00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.640
Ohio prison where he was serving his life sentence so

335
00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:56.559
he could await another appeal proceeding. This was another stage

336
00:18:56.599 --> 00:18:58.839
in the legal fight he had been waging for years,

337
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:02.160
another attempt to convince a court that the jury had

338
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.720
not heard the full story about Christopher Brady, the evidence

339
00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:09.200
and the allegations that surfaced after the trial. According to

340
00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:12.519
the reporting summarized in our case Materials, this may have

341
00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:15.079
been his final serious bid for a new trial, and

342
00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:19.759
he needed money, allegedly to influence the judge presiding over

343
00:19:19.799 --> 00:19:23.960
his hearing. Mortenson had decided the easiest way to access

344
00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:27.720
some money would be through his elderly grandmother, Doris Kosovel.

345
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:31.160
Doris was in her late eighties by then, she was

346
00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:33.759
in a Las Vegas nursing home, and she owned, through

347
00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:37.240
a trust, a piece of California beachfront property in more Obey.

348
00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:41.599
Mortenson's mother had been helping care for Doris, and according

349
00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:44.759
to record of conversations. She didn't want the family's resources

350
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:49.240
drained in Iron's case. Mortenson did not take this very well.

351
00:19:49.400 --> 00:19:52.359
On one recording, Mortenson referred to his mother as his

352
00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:55.880
stupid mother because in his view, she was standing in

353
00:19:55.880 --> 00:19:59.200
the way of the property being used for him. His mother,

354
00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:01.480
from what we can tell well, was saying that the

355
00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:04.480
family needed to care for Doris, not spend the estate's

356
00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:08.759
biggest asset on Ron's legal fight. Mortensen saw the Morrol

357
00:20:08.799 --> 00:20:11.960
Bay House as a financial lifeline to possibly buy influence

358
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:15.079
around the appeal he believed could set him free. So

359
00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:18.000
Mortensen wrote to his grandmother Doris and asked her to

360
00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:20.559
sign the house over to him. He asked one of

361
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:24.359
his supporters, former prosecutor Kenneth Long, to physically bring that

362
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:29.319
letter to her nursing home. Long's alleged and documented role

363
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:32.759
in this whole detour feels almost unreal. He was familiar

364
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:36.079
with the Mortenson case, he believed he was innocent, and

365
00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:39.480
he had become connected to his cause. He had recently

366
00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:43.759
run unsuccessfully for a Henderson judgeship. He had reportedly written

367
00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:46.039
the first one hundred pages or so about a book

368
00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:49.720
about Mortenson's murder case, and he had visited Mortenson in

369
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:53.960
jail at least fifteen times. The Review Journal described Long

370
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.880
as the kind of person who seemed, at least on paper,

371
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:01.720
above reproach, a former prosecutor, a Boy Scout leader, and

372
00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.279
someone who had worked for the FBI in Idaho in

373
00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:05.440
the late nineteen nineties.

374
00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:09.480
Long later wrote in an affidavit that Doris was alert

375
00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:12.119
and aware of her surroundings when he visited her, and

376
00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:15.480
that she clearly stated several times that she wanted Ronald

377
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:18.640
to have the California house and wanted to help him.

378
00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:21.240
The house was held in trust, but she signed the

379
00:21:21.240 --> 00:21:25.200
house over to him and a jail guard notarized it. However,

380
00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:28.160
Mortensen was in prison and had no job, which made

381
00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:30.680
it difficult for him to get a loan against the property.

382
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:34.680
Eddie Gould, another inmate, agreed to buy the Moro Bay

383
00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:37.839
property for one point three million dollars with no money

384
00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:42.759
down and two years to pay. Gould's plan, according to reporting,

385
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:45.279
was to flip the house and make even more money.

386
00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:49.480
According to reporting in Los Angeles Times, he said that

387
00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:52.440
for deal like that he would parade down Fremont Street

388
00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:56.640
in Espeedo with nipple pasties. However, Eddie Gould was not

389
00:21:57.000 --> 00:21:59.759
only another inmate, he was also a former FBI in

390
00:21:59.799 --> 00:22:02.839
fur Mormont, and he told authorities what Mortenson was trying

391
00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:06.039
to do. According to Gould, some of the money from

392
00:22:06.039 --> 00:22:08.799
the sale of the property was intended to bribe the

393
00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:13.200
judge connected to Mortenson's appeal, Nancy Sayda. At the time.

394
00:22:13.279 --> 00:22:16.799
Judge Saida's husband, Joe Sayita, was a retired chief of

395
00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:19.640
the US Secret Service office in Las Vegas and an

396
00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:21.119
acquaintance of Kenneth Long.

397
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:24.839
Long wrote an email to Mortenson's wife, Zoe, saying that

398
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:28.119
he kept in contact with Sayda's husband and had told

399
00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:31.799
him his feelings about Ron's case, including his very blunt

400
00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:36.880
view that Mortenson's conviction was garbage. The FBI was reportedly

401
00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:40.240
interested in looking at Sayta because, according to the reporting,

402
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:44.440
there had already been concerns about her taking campaign contributions

403
00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:47.640
from attorneys with cases in front of her. The FBI

404
00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:51.359
asked Gould to wear a wire. According to our research,

405
00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:54.519
Mortensen told Gould that he thought he would win on

406
00:22:54.599 --> 00:22:57.119
appeal because of all the errors in the case. He

407
00:22:57.160 --> 00:22:59.519
said he had not murdered anyone, and he expected that

408
00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:03.079
if his conviction was overturned, he could plead to something

409
00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:07.160
much less. Then Gould suggested that another one hundred thousand

410
00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:09.759
dollars would put the judge even more in his favor.

411
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:15.039
Mortenson's response was not exactly comforting. He said, yeah, then

412
00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:18.480
one hundred grand really gets her predilections going, and he

413
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:20.599
added that he hoped they could get it all together.

414
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:24.920
He called the whole thing good politics. In one of

415
00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:28.319
the most revealing moments, Mortensen said, it's only illegal if

416
00:23:28.319 --> 00:23:31.839
we tell on ourselves or if we get ourselves caught. Gould,

417
00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:35.000
who had a history of racketeering, allegedly lied on the

418
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:38.519
loan documents by claiming Mortensen was his stepfather, and he

419
00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:41.000
was able to secure a loan connected to the property.

420
00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:45.720
Days after the loan cleared, Gould's own criminal situation improved

421
00:23:45.799 --> 00:23:49.799
dramatically and his eleven felony charges were resolved through dismissals,

422
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:54.559
suspended sentences, and probation, and Gould was released. Then, Gould

423
00:23:54.559 --> 00:23:57.480
met with Kenneth Long at Boulder Station Casino with a

424
00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:00.680
bag of cash with the help of the FBI. Hidden

425
00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:03.400
cameras were in place and Gould was wearing a wire.

426
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:06.400
During the meeting. Long said he met with Joe Sayita

427
00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:09.119
and raised the question of what kind of influence Joe

428
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:13.599
had over Nancy. Gould brought a letter from Mortenson addressed

429
00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:17.400
to Ken Kenneth Long, saying that only forty thousand dollars

430
00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:20.119
was available right then, but that Long should make the

431
00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:23.240
thirty thousand dollars payments as discussed and keep ten thousand

432
00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:26.960
dollars for himself. Long said he didn't want the money

433
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:29.240
and he would put it in a money market an account.

434
00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:31.839
He also said something that sounded at a minimum like

435
00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:34.400
he understood the danger of what was being discussed. He

436
00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:37.279
said that personally he thought giving the money to Sayta

437
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:40.279
would backfire, and that if Mortenson wanted to contribute to

438
00:24:40.279 --> 00:24:43.200
her campaign, Long would tell him that he should not,

439
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.279
or if he did, he should do it anonymously. Gould

440
00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:50.079
told Long to take it up with Mortensen and then left.

441
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:53.680
When Mortensen didn't hear back from Gould, he became frustrated

442
00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:57.480
and contacted his mother. In that communication, Mortenson complained that

443
00:24:57.519 --> 00:24:59.599
he had not been able to go into every detail

444
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:02.079
with Long about what to do with the money, which

445
00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:05.119
we all know is for Nancy, and he said he

446
00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:09.880
was not the one messing up Nancy's piece. Then the

447
00:25:09.960 --> 00:25:13.759
next day, Mortensen scolded Gould in a letter. He said,

448
00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:16.799
you decided not to pay Joe and Nancy not me.

449
00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:20.640
Mortinson wrote a second letter to his mother saying that

450
00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:23.680
a corrections officer had told Kenneth Long that Gould was

451
00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:26.640
a police informant and that Gould was wearing a wire.

452
00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:31.640
A Clark County corrections officer named Brian Hurrich later resigned

453
00:25:31.960 --> 00:25:35.759
amid allegations that he had blown Gould's cover. Hurridge said

454
00:25:35.799 --> 00:25:38.839
he did not intentionally tip off Mortenson, but said he

455
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:41.920
jokingly speculated to Mortenson that Gould might have been wearing

456
00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:45.839
a wire. We find this whole story almost impossible to believe.

457
00:25:46.359 --> 00:25:49.680
A convicted former police officer housed in the Clark County

458
00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:54.240
Detention Center while fighting a murder conviction, allegedly tried to

459
00:25:54.319 --> 00:25:58.000
rout money through an elderly grandmother's property, possibly to bribe

460
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:00.960
a judge, while a former sell me the informant where's

461
00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:04.000
a wire? A former prosecutor gets drawn into a cash

462
00:26:04.039 --> 00:26:07.680
meeting at Boulder Station casino, and a corrections officer allegedly

463
00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:10.599
tips off Mortenson that the informant is wearing a wire.

464
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.279
When Kenneth Long was questioned by police. He denied knowing

465
00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:17.279
about any plan to bribe a judge, and he agreed

466
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:20.880
to wear a wire himself and confront Mortensen. When Long

467
00:26:20.920 --> 00:26:23.839
spoke to Mortensen, he said, you can't contribute to a

468
00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:26.640
judge who's going to hear your case, and told Mortensen

469
00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:28.720
that he needed to hear him say he was not

470
00:26:28.839 --> 00:26:33.000
bribing a judge. Mortensen said he was embarrassed and denied it.

471
00:26:33.599 --> 00:26:36.839
Long pushed again, asking whether he could say, as a

472
00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:39.359
friend and as a fellow Mormon that he was not

473
00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:43.319
bribing a judge. Mortenson said, I'm not bribing a judge

474
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:46.759
and added that he had no interest in bribing Judge Sayda.

475
00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:51.559
Judge Sayida and her husband also denied knowing about any plot.

476
00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:55.680
Mortenson and Long were charged with elder abuse connected to

477
00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:59.279
the attempt to obtain Doris's property. Long pleaded guilty to

478
00:26:59.319 --> 00:27:02.720
a gross misty demeanor, was fined two thousand dollars and

479
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:07.039
lost his law license. Mortenson later entered an alfred plea

480
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:11.240
to conspiracy to commit a crime. Both Gould and Mortenson

481
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:14.920
ultimately lost their claims to Doris's house, and the property

482
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:16.559
reverted back to the trust.

483
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:21.079
Las Vegas prosecutors also charged Gould with fraud related to

484
00:27:21.079 --> 00:27:24.079
the falsified loan documents, and Gould insisted that he had

485
00:27:24.119 --> 00:27:27.400
done what he did at the direction of authorities. He

486
00:27:27.480 --> 00:27:30.759
sued police officers in federal court for civil rights violations,

487
00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:33.799
and through that lawsuit, discovery brought more of the alleged

488
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.839
bribery and Elderview's scheme into public view. These documents also

489
00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:40.920
revealed that the investigation itself may have been compromised by

490
00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:43.920
the jailhouse league, and that one of the lead detectives

491
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:46.079
in the probe had once testified that he was a

492
00:27:46.119 --> 00:27:51.240
friend of Mortenson. After seven postponements, Mortenson's long appeal finally

493
00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:54.119
went forward after more than two years after he had

494
00:27:54.519 --> 00:27:58.240
been brought back to Las Vegas, and Judge Douglas Herndon

495
00:27:58.359 --> 00:28:01.680
denied it. The Review Journal later summoned up the whole

496
00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:05.000
thing like this. The judge won election to the Nevada

497
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:08.359
Supreme Court. The convicted kop lost the appeal he had

498
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:12.519
allegedly hoped to influence. The corrections officer resigned under fire,

499
00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:15.680
the grandmother got her house back, and the prosecutor got

500
00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:19.039
a small fine for his part in cheating a senior citizen.

501
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:21.440
It is also the kind of thing that made Mortensen

502
00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:24.279
a very difficult person to turn into a clean, innocent

503
00:28:24.319 --> 00:28:28.680
looking figure. Mortensen remained in prison. He continued to pursue

504
00:28:28.680 --> 00:28:33.000
state and federal relief. The courts continued to review, reject, narrow,

505
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:35.480
or preserve pieces of his claims.

506
00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:38.480
One other issue that we mentioned briefly but never dived

507
00:28:38.519 --> 00:28:41.599
into fully was the issue of the jury instructions during

508
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:44.400
the trial. At the time of the trial in nineteen

509
00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:47.359
ninety seven, Nevada courts were using what became known as

510
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:51.559
the Kaslin instruction, which blurred the difference between premeditation and

511
00:28:51.640 --> 00:28:55.880
deliberation in first degree murder cases. A few years later,

512
00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.079
in a case called Byford, the Nevada Supreme Court said

513
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:03.480
juries needed clear ar explanation of those terms. To simplify

514
00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:05.960
the issue. It was not enough for jurors to decide

515
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:09.000
that a killing was intentional for first degree murder, they

516
00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:12.000
also had to be properly instructed on the separate requirement

517
00:29:12.039 --> 00:29:16.240
of deliberation. Deliberation requires the act to be more than

518
00:29:16.359 --> 00:29:20.640
impulsive or rash. Intent would be I meant to do it.

519
00:29:21.160 --> 00:29:23.920
Premeditation would be I had formed the idea to do

520
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:27.799
it before I did it. Deliberation means I actually thought

521
00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:31.839
about doing it, even briefly, rather than acting on pure impulse.

522
00:29:32.759 --> 00:29:36.160
The jury in Mortenson's trial needed to be instructed about

523
00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:39.759
the difference based on that issue. Nearly twenty eight years

524
00:29:39.839 --> 00:29:42.640
after the jury convicted Ron Mortenson a first degree murder,

525
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:47.279
on March thirty first, twenty twenty five, US District Judge

526
00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:52.240
Kent Dawson overturned his conviction and ruled that Mortenson was

527
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:55.599
entitled to a new trial. The jury had been asked

528
00:29:55.599 --> 00:29:58.400
to decide whether Mortenson committed first degree murder, but the

529
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.000
instruction did not adequately explain deliberation. The jury could have

530
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:05.440
found the shooting was intentional, but not necessarily deliberate in

531
00:30:05.480 --> 00:30:08.599
the specific legal sense required for first degree murder.

532
00:30:09.759 --> 00:30:12.839
Judge Dawson also looked again at the Mark Barry issue.

533
00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:16.480
Although years earlier that a Supreme Court had rejected the

534
00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:19.720
argument that Barry's testimony would have mattered enough to change

535
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:24.359
the result, Judge Dawson disagreed. He concluded that Barry's testimony

536
00:30:24.359 --> 00:30:27.759
could have changed the case by undermining Brady's credibility and

537
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:30.119
exposing that Brady might have had a motive for the

538
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:34.119
shooting that Mortenson did not. And with that, nearly thirty

539
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:37.640
years after Daniel Mendoza was killed, Ron Mortenson was granted

540
00:30:37.640 --> 00:30:40.480
a new trial, reopening the case that people thought had

541
00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:43.759
been long settled. The ruling stunned both of us and

542
00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:47.240
motivated us to bring you this series. Next week and

543
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.319
our final part, we'll look at what happened after that ruling.

544
00:30:51.160 --> 00:30:54.279
Now that the conviction had been overturned nearly thirty years later,

545
00:30:54.599 --> 00:30:57.000
the state had a lot to consider when it decided

546
00:30:57.000 --> 00:30:59.440
what to do next. Did they retry a case from

547
00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:03.319
nineteen nine? Can they even find witnesses they need to testify?

548
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:05.880
Does the Mendoza family have to live through this whole

549
00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:09.359
thing again if they don't retry Mortenson? What happens if

550
00:31:09.400 --> 00:31:12.400
he just walks free? Vegas is not the same city

551
00:31:12.519 --> 00:31:15.039
was in nineteen ninety seven, but nearly thirty years later,

552
00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:18.720
this case is reopening in a city still wrestling with

553
00:31:18.759 --> 00:31:22.319
the same question. Daniel's murder forced into the open. What

554
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:25.000
happens when the people sworn to protect a community become

555
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:28.920
the danger. Until next week, we remind you what happens

556
00:31:28.920 --> 00:31:52.039
here happens everywhere. Thanks for listening, visit sinspod dot co,

557
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.079
slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad free.

558
00:31:57.079 --> 00:32:00.839
Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok,

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and threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast,

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please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice.

561
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You can contact us at questions at sinsensurvivors dot com.

562
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:14.799
If you are someone you know as affected by domestic

563
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:18.160
violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources

564
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:21.160
or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources

565
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:24.400
is available on our website, Sins and Survivors dot com.

566
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:28.240
Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research,

567
00:32:28.279 --> 00:32:31.240
written and produced by your hosts Sean and John. The

568
00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:33.759
information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time

569
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:37.160
of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please

570
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.960
email us. Links to source material for this episode can

571
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:43.960
be found on our website, Sinsensurvivors dot com.

572
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:47.160
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely

573
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:51.519
those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All

574
00:32:51.559 --> 00:32:55.480
individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not

575
00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:59.640
constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal

576
00:32:59.640 --> 00:33:00.839
profession knows for guidance.